


(You Were) Hidden In The Stars

by sinkhole



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alien Bucky Barnes, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Author Feels This Story Works Better With Some Reveals, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Happy Ending, Loneliness, M/M, Nothing That Needs A Warning Though, Spiders, Telepathy, Therefore Not Many Tags, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:33:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 27,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24965296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinkhole/pseuds/sinkhole
Summary: It felt a lot like giving up but Tony found himself in a position where taking an early retirement seemed the best option. There’s an academic community on Haelios and he’s got enough money to fund his own projects. Sounds like a dream. Not his dream but it’ll be fine. His trip there however, goes spectacularly off course and he ends up at a remote station instead, needing help from its taciturn caretaker.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Tony Stark
Comments: 73
Kudos: 156





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My first WinterIron story. I’m so late to this ship party but I wanted to contribute! I hope you like it.
> 
> This is a sci-fi AU and some of the set-up is taken from Alastair Reynolds’ short story Beyond the Aquila Rift but deviates from there. The short film of the same name in the Netflix Love, Death + Robots series contributes to some physical descriptions.

Tony opened his eyes to an intermittent light, briefly illuminating the surrounding darkness in swathes of red. He could hear a siren through the gel in his ears, even more so as it cleared out when he tried to sit upright and banged his head on the pod lid. It took him a moment to shake off the torpor brought on by crysosleep and remember where he was but his mounting adrenaline did a good job of helping speed that up.

The lid on his surge tank had opened a few inches but appeared to be jammed given how it didn’t budge at his attempt to push it open further. His muscles screamed as he managed to raise and position both hands and feet against the lid, and then push with all his strength until it opened enough that he’d be able to fit through. He groped at his restraints until they clicked open and expecting to float out, Tony instead found himself gracelessly slipping to the floor in a puddle of surge fluid.

Cryo suspension never left him feeling great but he was surprised by how weak he was as he took a moment to sit up and just breathe while wiping at the gel on his face. “JARVIS, report,” he croaked, voice hoarse from disuse. The familiar voice was absent amid the siren’s noise. “J? You there?”

At JARVIS’ continued silence, Tony reached up to grip the edge of the pod bed and hoisted himself up before staggering the few feet to the cockpit. His legs felt like they were new to this and could give out any moment. Rounding the pilot’s chair, he sat down heavily and looked out the window; there was nothing but black out there. Looking down at the console, he first wiped his gel covered fingers on the seat and then flicked off the emergency warnings, instantly grateful for a silence that almost hurt in the absence of all the noise. He quickly scanned for what had triggered the alarm. All life support readings appeared to be normal and that gave him a small measure of ease. His ship’s location readings had malfunctioned but he’d come back to that. Tony’s gaze caught on the chronometer reading and that couldn’t be right but more pressing was that the ship’s power levels were critically low. Power had switched over to emergency auxiliary and had been the reason for the alarm and likely, JARVIS’ silence as all non essential functions had shut down. Another indicator told him the auto-dock function had been deployed so he’d likely arrived. That would explain the gravity. Tony looked out the window again and still saw nothing but inky blackness. The view looked nothing like the ads for Haelios had led him to believe. As his vision adjusted to the conditions, he could start making out weak pinpricks of stars but only to the left of his field of vision.

Looking back down at the readings, Tony tried to process what he was seeing. The data had him over fifty thousand light years from his departure point and it had taken him just under two years to do it. Which was very much not the plan. Haelios was a relatively short trip of several weeks using a GATE and then another month to the planet from the exit point. He knew there’d been no mistake with inputting the coordinates – he’d done it himself. There was also no way he could have survived such a long trip without the fuel and supplies. Although, he supposed, he was still testing the upper limits of his new drive and fuel cell, his last project at Stark Industries. If he had really travelled that far then it had exceeded even his own, high expectations.

But how was he still alive if the data were accurate? He didn’t have any protocols for such a long trip but JARVIS would have made decisions based on his imperative to keep Tony alive; synthed and ported nutrients, kept his body in shape with electro-stimuli, that sort of thing. If all that was true, then where had he arrived at? Fifty thousand light years would have taken him to the outer reaches of human charted space but he had obviously arrived somewhere. There had been no contact yet though. Where was the welcoming committee?

Tony took a few minutes to look over the readings again and then started running an external check before slowly, because he had no strength or energy, going about the business of cleaning himself and changing. He knew where everything was stored and doing it by the low light of emergency power wasn’t a problem but he was eager to find out what was on the other side of the airlock. Although, he could admit, the eagerness was turning into apprehension with the continued lack of contact from what he assumed was a station.

Shortly after, the systems went down completely but not before verifying the temperature and air composition at the exterior door were compatible. It left Tony to hope for the best regarding bacteria, viruses and the like. Flashlight in his teeth, he opened an overhead cabinet and fetched a large sealed packet before removing from it a folded, transparent orange bugsuit. It was one of his own designs; a lightweight material of reinforced polygonal mesh that was good down to 0.05 microns and had excellent puncture resistance. He was practically panting from exertion by the time he managed to get it on and seal the suit off with a helmet.

Then there were the airlock doors which now needed to be opened manually. The first didn’t present much of a problem but the second was difficult to budge in his current, weakened state. He wasn’t a quitter though and there were really no options, so after a ridiculous number of attempts, the wheel finally turned, engaged the lock and the door hissed open and Tony stumbled forth into the station.

The first thing Tony saw was the man standing directly in front of him, at parade rest, dressed in a fitted grey and black coverall suit tucked into military style black boots. Tony fleetingly registered that he was attractive; early thirties maybe, tall, with a well-defined jaw and cheekbones framed by shoulder length dark hair. He was muscular and had an idealized physique given his shoulder to waist ratio and large thighs. He regarded Tony with an open and friendly expression and normally, on any other day in any other place, Tony would absolutely have taken more time to appreciate the view and maybe even let the view know it was appreciated.

His annoyance with his own discomfort was top of mind though. “You couldn’t have helped? With the door?” he snapped, voice sounding distorted by the helmet’s filters but not in a cool way, he registered with dismay.

The man’s unguarded expression dissolved into a frown. “I just got here.” His voice was low and a little rough and had the barest hint of an accent Tony couldn’t place.

Tony put his hands on his hips as he swayed unsteadily. It was about all he could do to further express his displeasure while knowing that he was essentially wearing a comically large orange bag that audibly crinkled every time he breathed. This design had very much been function over form. He didn’t know what he’d been thinking at the time.

The man swung an arm out, indicating behind himself. “It’s a big station,” he said, sounding a touch exasperated. Already.

Tony stared at him accusingly. “Normally, there are more people. Normally, there’s intake paperwork. Customs forms.”

The man just frowned at him some more and it struck Tony that he looked disappointed somehow, all traces of that earlier, friendly expression gone. It might have been Tony’s imagination but he’d almost seemed glad to see him. Until Tony opened his mouth, that is. He must have bested his personal record, annoying someone new in a matter of seconds. In light of that he opted for a slightly more conciliatory tone. “Ok look, full disclosure. I have no idea where I am, when I am or how I got here or why I’m even alive to be honest. Can you help me with any of that?”

“Yeah sure, I can do that,” the man answered gruffly. “Can you walk?

“Is that a dig at the functionality of my fetching bugsuit?” Tony asked as the bugsuit crinkled loudly for emphasis. “I’ll have you know it’s the height of parasite prevention.”

The man looked at him blankly. “Don’t need that here unless you’re protectin’ _me_ from somethin’. Or you just like dressin’ like that.”

Tony was surprised by his own laugh and decided to take the man at his word, gladly unsealing himself and letting the suit fall to the floor as he stepped out of it and removed his helmet.

His host turned to walk into the station proper as Tony fell in beside him, somewhat unsteadily but managing. “There’s a lounge not far from here. I can fill you in unless you need medical attention first?”

Tony perked up at the thought of a drink and information. “Lounge is good. It’s great in fact. Lead on.” He followed his greeter down the jetway and into the station.

Soon Tony was inhaling the peaty aroma of what might be the finest whisky he’d ever had. It didn’t taste like synthohol at all.

The lounge was dimly lit, decorated in a chic and minimalist style and boasted large windows that featured a stunning view of space. Through them, Tony could make out some of the exterior details of the station, on what must be a different side than he arrived on, as this was facing a light source. The exterior looked to be just as sleek and modern as the interior.

There was no one else in the lounge and his host had prepared him his drink. Now Tony was sitting across from him at a table, ensconced in the embrace of a plush club chair. “So, lay it on me,” Tony said after another fortifying sip.

“You’re on Azura Station,” he said with an air of finality that sounded like he'd meant to leave it there but was forced to expand on that when Tony didn't react. “It’s past the Drackis Belt in Hizo 504 sector.” Tony gave him his best nonplussed expression. “That’s ok. No one comes here on purpose. There’s no reason to know where it is except it’s fuckin’ far from everythin’.”

That glum pronouncement seemed to conclude the information presentation as the man said nothing further, instead taking a long draw of his beer and directing his gaze to the window.

“Wait, what? That’s it? That’s all I get?” Tony asked after restraining himself and giving him ample seconds to continue.

The man turned back to him frowning again, jaw tight and with a deep crease between his brows. His eyes, an arresting shade of cold blue, glinted in the low light of the lounge and sent a chill down Tony’s back. He almost looked dangerous. He did in fact, look dangerous. He hadn’t even taken his gloves off which definitely added to the danger vibe. “What do you want to know?” he said more than asked and in a guarded tone, as though Tony was asking for some kind of classified information.

“Uh, everything?” Tony said after a beat, blithely ignoring his host’s demeanor and his own reservations and fired off all that came to mind. “What year is this? How quick can I refuel and restock? How many people are on this station? What’s your energy source? How often do other ships come here? Is there a GATE nearby? I assume that’s how I got here but I wasn’t awake for it. Any idea how I got here because I did not make such a navigational error let me assure you. Who are you and what do you do? Where do you come from because your accent seems familiar? Are there cheeseburgers? Or wait, is there shawarma?” Tony asked hopefully.

The man huffed at him and Tony hoped it was a laugh but then the frown was back and that did nothing to assure him of anything so he took another few sips of whisky to keep his hands and mouth busy.

“All the ships who end up here came through the GATE system. That’s what happens when you use old alien tech that you don’t fully understand and that’s degradin’. Glitches sometimes. There’s a GATE within a quarter light year to the station but I don’t think it’s reliable. The ship before yours was ten thousand light years off course.” The man paused there and cleared his throat, his voice getting rougher as though he was unused to speaking. “There are cheeseburgers and shawarma though,” he added, the tiniest trace of humour curling his lip in a blink-and-you’d-miss-it way.

“Well, that’s - that’s good. I’m glad there’s a consolation prize,” Tony said as he flashed the man a quick smile. “Can’t help but notice you didn’t answer most of the questions though.” Tony stared into his scotch as the silence stretched on. He finally raised his eyes to find his host looking uncomfortable and that didn’t bode well. “Energy source? Fuel?” he pressed.

The man shook his head, dark hair swinging over his eyes as he looked down into his beer and avoided Tony’s gaze.

“What does that mean? That usually means no. None?” Tony was left shocked and speechless for a moment. “I can’t leave? Unless someone comes along?” he asked, pitch rising with disbelief.

“Yeah, that’s about the size of it,” he confirmed, making eye contact again with those intense eyes of his.

“OK... OK so I might be here a while,” Tony said as he ran his hand down his face. He was trying to keep calm but the thought of being marooned for possibly months or maybe even years on an outpost station was terrifying. He finished his drink and put it down more forcefully than necessary. “I’m Tony by the way and I’m going to need another one of those. Or five.”

“I’ll get you another,” the man said already moving to the bar, as though glad for something to do. “Name’s James,” he called out as he deftly poured three fingers of scotch into a fresh glass before bringing it to the table along with the bottle. After a long moment of mutual silence where James appeared to be considering saying something, given how his jaw worked and a false start or two, he finally did. “I mostly do structural repairs and maintenance. Been here for a bit, by way of an intergenerational ship headed for Cors Sector. I’m from New Brooklyn, on Terra25 and have the accent to prove it. Got off here,” he said before wincing into his beer. “Obviously."

“Huh. New Brooklyn. That actually sounds familiar,” Tony said as he wondered why it might. “So, you can’t leave either. Did something happen to the station after you came?”

“Yeah, we were hit by a particle storm a while back and lost all but one of the power source arrays. Stranded now in a place that’s essentially on life support and too far from anythin’ else.”

“Fuck,” Tony said with feeling.

James had been looking more and more uncomfortable as he spoke, hair hiding his eyes and frown growing deeper. Tony decided he’d give him a break. He was exhausted anyway after this small amount of exertion. Maybe he’d get a chance to talk to someone tomorrow who didn’t treat general information like they were divulging state secrets.

The alcohol was doing its job and the fuzziness helped him push aside the panic he thought he should be feeling. For now, he’d focus on food and sleep and come back to it tomorrow.

"You’ll probably be wantin’ someplace to rest and a bite to eat?” James asked as if he was a mind reader, bless him.

“That would be nice, thank you. Don’t think that gets you off the hook though,” Tony warned, mock seriously. “More questions tomorrow unless you fob me off on someone else.”

“ ’M afraid you’re stuck with me,” James said into his glass before tipping it up. Tony watched the play of light and shadow on his pale throat, studded with dark stubble, as he finished the last of his beer and put the glass down. Then he watched his mouth as James wiped a bit of foam from it with the back of his glove. “We’re all doin’ double and triple duty here. It’s my pleasure anyway.” He then gave Tony a tiny little smile, completely at odds with his danger vibe. Tony realized, after he had stared at James a little longer than was polite, that he might be having some trouble staying on program. He just needed some rest – the fatigue was getting to him.

James led him out of the lounge and down several sleek corridors with reactive lighting, to a hallway with identical doors. “You can take any of these. Maybe this one’s a bit bigger.” James indicated a door while walking up to it and making the decision for Tony. The door slid open to reveal a nicely appointed room in muted colours and soft lighting with a large, very comfortable looking bed.

“Toilet’s through there and this here is where you order your food,” James said pointing out the features of the suite before stopping at a station set up along the wall adjacent to the door. “There’s instructions and if you need anything at all, you can reach me on the com over by the door.”

“Yeah, thanks James. That’s great. Really. I’ll see you tomorrow then?” Tony asked, suddenly feeling even more weary as though his body had needed to see a bed to know it had reached its absolute limit.

“You bet,” James nodded. ‘Night Tony.” With a quick two finger salute James exited the suite and the doors slid shut behind him. Tony stared after him for a moment, feeling slightly better about their meeting. It had ended on a nicer note than how it began and he was glad of it if James was going to be Tony’s point person at the station. James didn’t want to talk much but he seemed nice. Definitely nice to look at anyway.

He approached the food station and following the infographics, attempted to order a hamburger. He was expecting the food synth to serve hot, hamburger flavoured paste immediately but instead, he got a numerical display that read 20. He watched for a while until it ticked down to 19 before deciding nothing was happening soon. He went to the bathroom and looked around, appreciating the amenities that were decidedly not a cramped, multifunction ship toilet before quickly shucking his clothes off and having a real shower, with actual water. It was such a luxury.

By the time Tony exited the bathroom, skin pink and herbal scented steam trailing behind him, the countdown was finished and the room smelled heavenly. There at the food station was a burger and fries on a platter, along with some condiments in little dishes accompanied by small porcelain spoons. He lifted the bun, its golden top glistening with butter, to reveal the usual fixings. It turned out to be the juiciest, most delicious burger Tony could remember having in a long while. Maybe since burger nights with Rhodey all those years ago. Tony grabbed a fry and found the exterior perfectly crispy, probably double fried, and the interior hot and soft, just as he preferred. Even the ketchup was good quality and didn’t have that slightly yeasty smell that most paste foods did.

Later, after he’d arranged the duvet how he liked and sunk his head onto the soft pillow, Tony watched the blackness of space through the window from bed while thinking about the last couple of hours. What he had seen of the station was unexpectedly nice so far apart from the station’s remote location and the energy source problem. It wasn’t that he didn’t have questions; the relatively luxurious living conditions didn’t really make sense given the situation but that was something he could think about tomorrow. If he was going to be stuck here for a while, maybe it wouldn’t be the worst. Maybe he could help them out and make the best of it. Maybe he could get James to talk some more because he liked a challenge and maybe because that little smile was something he wanted to see again. It had felt like he’d won something and Tony was all about positive reinforcement.

He soon fell into a dreamless sleep, his last conscious thought being whether the food synth made coffee as perfectly as it made burgers and fries.


	2. Chapter 2

Tony woke what felt like moments later and caught himself before asking JARVIS what time it was. He checked his statband and discovered he’d slept for almost a full cycle. He must really have been exhausted as he normally only slept half that, if even.

Getting up caused the room sensors to slowly increase the ambient light, allowing Tony to check inside some of the low cabinets lining the wall across from the foot of the bed. He found some generic grey joggers, sweatshirts, t-shirts, briefs and pairs of socks neatly folded and looking new. Grabbing one of each he made for the bathroom before double backing to the food synth and punching in an order for coffee and taking a chance on the sunrise bagel that promised endless bacon. While the machine counted down and did whatever it did, Tony had another shower because he could.

Breakfast turned out to be a small bowl of fragrant congee, another little bowl that had what looked like real fruit and then a scrambled egg bagel, topped with a slice of bacon folded into a moebius strip. Someone had a sense of humour.

Tony savoured his coffee while poking at the food synth for clues to its mechanical makeup until he thought it was probably time to contact James. Before he could get to the com though, he heard a soft chime in the room but wasn’t sure what that represented so he just called out. “Hello?”

The door slid open to reveal James, dressed as he had been yesterday, and giving him a small smile. “Hi Tony. Sleep ok?”

“Oh my God,” Tony gushed, heading over to the door. “James, the bed, that burger, the coffee! It’s all so good. It’s miraculous. The shower is a religious experience. You’re in the middle of nowhere and you have all the best things.”

James looked amused in the face of Tony’s energy. “I’m glad you’re comfortable.”

“A religious experience James,” Tony stressed. “I’m more than comfortable. Thank you.”

“Can’t really take the credit but I’m glad you like it here,” he said ducking his head a little which seemed like such an incongruously shy gesture from the larger man and Tony found it endearing.

“So!” Tony clapped his hands together, putting a stop to that train of thought before it got started. He needed to stayed focussed. “What are we doing? The nickel tour? Meeting the crew? Discussing space station power sources?”

“Um, sure. Let’s start with the tour.”

James led Tony through long, gleaming, bright corridors and out into a hub before choosing one of the arteries opposite where they entered. Tony was impressed with the station’s size and how well maintained it was although he couldn’t help but notice it was empty of other people. He hadn’t seen anyone else yet.

They soon arrived at a cavernous hangar where scores of vessels of all classes were docked. James told him that most of those ships had arrived before his time but all were in a similar predicament due to lack of fuel or power cells to get them any fair distance. While there, Tony finally spied some people - he could see workers on the far side of the hangar welding something, going by the sparks and arcing lights. He started moving in that direction but James began talking about the power source for the station which immediately got all of Tony’s attention.

“The station’s positioned just out of reach of a quasar’s pull. We get our energy from the particles in its wind. We’re far beyond the edge of the accretion disk and can harness the spillover safely enough. Most of the time,” James shrugged. “Not really sure if it can be blamed for what took out the arrays.”

“Huh. Didn’t know that was being done anywhere. But then there’s not too many supermassive black holes close by to set up shop around. Except here I guess,” Tony amended, reminding himself he’d been flung far through the galaxy.

“It’s still pretty far from here but we get just enough of the particles that it works. The quasar is the light source too,” James said as he indicated an illuminated exterior part of station, visible through a hangar window. “There’s no stars left nearby.”

“I’m not familiar with how technology would use the charged particles but I’m an engineer, it’s kind of my thing. I’d love to get a look at it, maybe see if it’s adaptable,” Tony said.

“Sure, and we could use an engineer around here. Stuff is always breakin’ down. Not enough hands, you know?”

“Happy to help,” Tony said brightly and he meant it. Now that he was rested and thinking clearly, he wasn’t stressing about being able to refuel his ship. He could make an arc reactor with the materials he’d brought and convert the ship to run on that. The distance he’d travelled was potentially an issue if he couldn’t retrace his steps, due to a glitch in the GATE stream, but he was confident, with time, it was a problem that could be solved. And, if he was going to be stuck here while he worked that out, he wanted to be useful and if learning about some new tech was the side effect, he’d happily take that.

James gave him a sideways glance and seemed to consider his words. “Maybe you can look at the water maker? Seems like it’s always on the fritz and with everyone doin’ double or triple duty, it hasn’t gotten proper care.”

“Yeah?” Tony asked intrigued. He was curious how a station which used such advanced tech got their water. “Lead on James.”

The water maker turned out to be another technology that Tony hadn’t seen but had heard of as theoretically possible.

“There’s water in the wind dust here and the external arrays collect it and this unit separates it from whatever it’s bound to,” James explained.

“If it’s not evaporating from all the heat the accretion disc puts out, it would have to be something like molecular chemisorption?” Tony guessed, already fascinated.

“Yeah, exactly. Problem is I can’t tell you how it works more than that. Only that it’s putting out less water than it used to.”

“That’s fine. I like a challenge,” Tony said, flashing James a winning smile.

The unit itself was a large metal cylinder that connected to the ceiling and had pipes running out of the bottom heading off in different directions. Tony started near the base and found a panel at the back that was a little tricky to remove. He was able to see some basic looking connections that were heavily corroded and would need cleaning. Further inspection higher up, via another panel, gave him a glimpse of the many layers of a filtration system, almost unrecognizable as such due to some serious mineral build up.

“James, did anyone think to clean this? That’s probably half the problem right there,” Tony said as he dropped to his knees to peer under the tank. There was another panel under the tank but this one proved difficult to remove. Getting on his back and sliding underneath, Tony could see mineral buildup all around the seam of the panel where water must have pooled and leaked. “Can’t…Pry…This…Fucker,” Tony swore as he pulled at the panel. “James, could you give me a hand?”

James joined Tony on the floor, sliding up beside him to pull at the handles on the panel while Tony scraped the blade of the multi tool he always had with him, into the seam. He had to adjust his position to do it and found himself leaning back on James’ chest, encircled by his upraised arms. He maybe felt a little bad for encroaching on James’ personal space like that but he’d been given a task and Tony was very mission oriented.

Once the buildup was chipped off, Tony whacked at the panel with the butt of the tool. The crusty seal finally came loose with a crack as James pulled the panel away just before a heap of mineral dust dumped out of the base of the tank right onto them.

Once they stopped coughing, Tony drew back a little and turned over to grin at James. “Just a guess but I think you might have a small problem with build-up.”

“Ya think?” James said tersely, letting his head drop against the floor with a thunk as he coughed some more.

Tony was very sensitive to people’s moods and he couldn’t guess why James’s mood might have soured so much unless he had objected to Tony getting too close after all or he really didn’t like space dust in his hair or something. As they extracted themselves from under the tank and brushed the excess off as best they could, Tony could see that James was practically glowering.

“You mad about the dust?” he asked.

“What?” James’ angry expression instantly transformed as he looked genuinely surprised at the question. “No! This is great Tony, you found the problem, thank you.”

“So, why the murder face?”

“I don’t have a murder face,” James protested. “It’s… Just going to be hard to fix.”

“First, yes you do. It’s terrifying. Second, excuse me? Hard to fix? Cleaning a water filter doesn’t even rate on the scale of hard.” Tony stopped himself to appreciate his own pun. Seeing James was back to scowling only made him want to beat it to death. “Scale? Hard? Water? Pfft. Forget you,” he said waving an arm dismissively in James’ direction.

James cracked a reluctant smile and much of the tension he’d looked to be holding himself with eased as his posture relaxed a little. “OK Tony,” he nodded, pushing hair off his face and giving it a tousle to shake off some more dust. “I’ll get some tools together later. We’ll start on it tomorrow? Maybe get cleaned up now and I can take you to the other side of the station after lunch.”

Tony thought it was strange that a station which appeared this functional had let such vital tech fall into disrepair but they didn’t seem to have any problems with supply yet even though he could hardly guess how that was possible given the state of the unit. There must be more than the one. Waiting another cycle or two to fix it would probably make no difference.

“Sure, sounds good. I actually can’t wait to find out what the lunch options are. That food station is amazing. Hope you don’t mind but I’m going to take it apart at some point.” Tony rambled on about the food synth as they walked back towards his quarters until he remembered wanting to ask James something. He’s seen a flash of silver and an interesting pattern at James’ wrist earlier when they were under the water tank. James had been pulling at the panel and his uniform sleeve had separated from the gloves he was wearing.

“Do you wear jewelry or is that some cool tech that I have absolutely got to see?” Tony asked.

“What?” James looked confused at the non sequitur.

“On your wrist?”

“I don’t have anythin’ on my wrist?” James said as he held up his right one.

“No, this one.” Tony reached to tap at James’ left arm and was surprised to encounter a hard, unyielding surface under the fabric. He grabbed at the sleeve of James’ coverall and forced them to stop walking. James allowed it and said nothing as Tony slid the material up to expose a gleaming metal forearm.

He stared at it in shock as all the blood drained from his face. He felt frozen. For one long, heart stopping moment he felt true fear, mounting panic clawing at the edges of his consciousness and threatening to take over as he struggled with what he was seeing. Then his heart started up again, pounding now as he broke out in a cold sweat. Tony dropped hold of the sleeve and backed away from James, hitting the corridor wall where he stayed while he tried to fight the overwhelming instinct to run only because it would serve no purpose.

James looked at him with wide eyed concern. “Tony?”

He made to move closer but Tony held up his arm, palm out, to ward him off and James stopped and stayed rooted to the spot, the both of them making a tense, frozen tableaux as they regarded each other. Gaze flicking again to James’ arm, Tony said nothing until he willed himself to snap out of the panic, got his brain back in gear and channeled his fear into anger.

Bringing his arm down he squared his shoulders and straightened up to face James. “OK. You know what? This has been fun but why don’t you tell me the truth. Now,” he said with quiet menace.

For his part, James look confused and defaulted to a frown. “Why are you speaking to me like that? I don’t understand.”

Tony chose to ignore the question and press his. “What’s your full name _James_?” he asked, stressing the last word.

“It’s James Buchanan Barnes,” he answered evenly.

“Bucky Barnes,” said Tony in a mocking lilt.

James’ expression transformed into something almost hopeful. “You remember me?”

“Uh, yeah. I do now.”

“Isn’t - isn’t that good?” James asked tentatively, looking more confused if that was possible.

“Not for you it isn’t,” Tony said, angrily. “You know why?” he added after a moment, taking in James’ continued wide eyed expression.

James shook his head.

“Your identify is fictional.

“What? No, it’s not!”

Tony continued as though James hadn’t spoken. “James Bucky Barnes was the serialized BFF of Captain America, also fictional. Bucky was a war hero, soldier, prisoner, enhanced and ridiculously hot amnesiac assassin called the Winter Soldier. Tragic story arc really. Pretty dark but he comes out all right. The important part though, _James_ , the take away, is that he never existed!”

James stared at him as though Tony had spoken in a language he didn’t understand. Then, as though he’d given in, he closed his eyes and visibly sagged, taking a moment before speaking quietly. “I couldn’t tell him apart from the other people in your life. He seemed so real. He was the only one you recalled without regret, who could conceivably be here and wasn’t dead.”

Of all the things he could have said, James chose something that Tony still felt deep wounds from and it angered him even more. “Thank you _,_ whoever you really are, for reducing my entire life experience with other people to one shitty but very accurate sentence,” Tony said bitterly. He eyed the man before him and wondered what else to say. He didn’t owe this guy shit, but he wanted answers. Was he a hostile? What did he mean about choosing James Barnes over the other people in his life? How did he know who they were?

He was holding very few cards and needed help from James, he knew this. Going back to a dead ship wasn’t an option and running from James would be ridiculous in a finite space. He came to a decision and steeled himself. “Ok, I’ll play along. I didn’t have a fun childhood and spent a lot of time and I mean _a lot of time_ , in those Virtuals. Bucky Barnes _was_ pretty real to me. And he didn’t betray me or try to kill me so that was a plus.”

“Why didn’t you recognize me - him, then?” James asked, correcting himself.

“It was a long time ago?” Tony said casting back to his childhood and trying to recall Bucky Barnes’ face clearly from those memories. “I finally remembered the New Brooklyn connection and thought it was funny that you resembled the hero I was into when I was ten but he usually wore a domino mask or a full face mask back when he was the Winter Soldier and then tack gear or hero suits, so it didn’t really register since you had none of those things. Until the arm. Which you kept hidden,” Tony accused.

James groaned and slid a hand up his forehead to tug at his hair. “When you didn’t recognize me right away, I wasn’t sure what to do and it would have been weird later, so yeah, I kept it hidden.”

“It would have been weird _later?_ Like, it wouldn’t have been weird to begin with?” Tony asked incredulously.

“I panicked, ok?” James protested. “Everythin’ I had planned to say hinged on you recognizin’ me. Him,” he said earnestly before letting out a deep sigh. “I’m not very good at this. I’m sorry Tony. I’m so, so sorry.”

Tony eyed him for a good long time and successfully supressed the urge to verbally decimate the guy. That would gain him nothing. Instead, after taking a deep breath and centering himself by keeping his goal to stay alive top of mind, he made a request. “If you’re really sorry, make it up to me by telling the truth.”

“Uh, I can tell you Tony and I will tell you,” James promised immediately. “Everythin’ you want to know but I can guarantee you won’t like it. I think this is better,” he added, still speaking quietly.

“This? What’s this?” Tony had a feeling he wasn’t going to like whatever _this_ was.

James dipped his head and looked a little like he was going to be sick. “It’s an illusion Tony. You’re here with me at the station, that much is true but it’s… Different.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> water maker is a poor creative effort I know but couldn't think of anything better and then got used to the placeholder name (I've been torturing this story for a while) and then thought why not? sometimes things are just basic like that. so, water maker.


	3. Chapter 3

A feeling of dread prickled across Tony’s skin and lodged in his stomach. “Explain different,” he demanded warily.

“Everythin’ you’ve experienced... Since... Everythin’ since you arrived... It’s taken place in your mind,” James said haltingly, so obviously struggling to get the words out. “We’re not havin’ a physical conversation right now, the way you know it.”

“Oh,” Tony said, staggering back to lean against the corridor wall again as he processed this adjustment to his situation. He just let himself breathe for a while as he considered what this might mean for him, and wondered if his chances of survival just plummeted ~~.~~ It would appear that James had a lot more control over Tony’s situation than he’d let on, at least in the form of situational knowledge and how much of it he chose to share. Tony needed more information but the first stumbling block was getting the _correct_ information. James seemed to be willing to share it, now, although only when asked. Hopefully, this time he was being truthful.

For his part, James looked like he was having a really hard time with this, standing there hunched in on himself and frowning really hard. He looked about ready to shut down which Tony couldn’t afford.

Sighing, Tony rubbed at his face while considering how to approach this. He knew he wasn’t going to gain anything without engaging James so that’s what he would have to continue to do. “OK. Let’s just start from the beginning. What’s your real name?”

“Might as well be James or Bucky. I don’t have a name,” James answered readily enough. At Tony’s disbelieving scoff he insisted. “We have family names but not individual ones. My designation would be equivalent to a number, I guess.”

“What? Who names their kid a number?” Tony asked, incredulous.

“Well when you’ve got hundreds of kids it’s just pragmatic. I’m not human Tony.”

Right, Tony was talking to an alien passing as a human who had the power to alter his perception of reality. Not scary at all.

“So, what are you?” he asked somewhat calmly. Tony was pretty surprised that he was managing to keep it together and appear level headed on the outside when on the inside, he just really wanted to scream and get the hell far away.

“We call ourselves Asarti. Came from a place far from here, originally. But those were the ancients.”

That rang absolutely no bells but didn’t mean that James’ race wasn’t known by another name. “How did you know about Bucky Barnes?” Tony guessed he knew the answer and desperately hoped he was wrong because he was beyond creeped out.

James stood up a bit straighter to answer the question. “I can visualize your memories and can also interact with or manipulate your perception, to some degree. I can read emotions. Can’t read your thoughts precisely but I can get the gist. Badly though, apparently.” James scratched at the back of his neck while looking apologetic and it seemed like such a human behaviour that Tony wondered why James was keeping up the pretence.

“When you arrived, to make our interaction easier, I tried to pick someone from your past who gave you comfort. All the other options I could find in your memories brought you a considerable amount of pain,” James trailed off, looking away again as he probably remembered how unhappy that made Tony the first time he’d mentioned it.

For his part, Tony squashed the internal freak out that was threatening to bubble up, tabling it for later. He very much did not like the idea that the contents of his mind were on an a la carte menu for some alien to peruse but was curious as to the motivation. “Why would you do that? Try and bring me comfort I mean?”

“Because this is a shitty situation and if the illusion of comfort makes it a bit better for you then I’ll do it. I’ll do anything to make it better. I like you Tony,” he said earnestly.

He considered that for a moment while shifting his gaze to the ceiling looking for strength. How much worse was this going to get, really? “Quantify shitty,” he directed. “And you don’t know me to like me.”

James shifted on his feet while appearing to focus inward. He opened his mouth to speak a couple of times, sighed and then closed it with a frown, looking frustrated that the words wouldn’t come.

Tony’s impatience won out and he didn’t wait for James to work through it. “Ok, I agree. You _are_ bad at this,” he said sharply. “Look, is there anyone else I could talk to?”

James didn’t appear offended and actually seemed relieved to have a direct question to answer. “No. It’s just us.”

Tony couldn’t help but let his surprise show. “Us as in just the two of us?

James nodded in confirmation.

“How long have you been here? Alone?” he asked, the pitch of his voice rising.

“Umm, ten, no, eleven moltings since it’s been just me.” At Tony’s blank expression, James continued. “I’m not exactly sure how to convert the way you calculate the passage of time but it’s been a really long while. Kinda goin’ crazy here with nobody to talk to. I um. Might be out of practice. You know. With the talkin’.”

Tony looked to see if James was making a self-deprecating joke, because no shit, but his expression gave nothing away. “So, there were others like you? What happened to them?”

“Yeah, we were a large colony. It was a busy place. I was just a juvenile when they died. It took me a long time to figure out it was somethin’ like a bomb went off and took out every organic thing inside the station. Was one of the ships that had come in not long before. Maybe on purpose or maybe not, don’t know. I was outside the station when it happened and everyone was dead when I got back in. Because of that, there’s a lot I don’t know. Our knowledge is passed telepathically and I was pretty young and still learnin’.”

Tony had enough compassion, despite his situation, that his heart broke a little at the thought of a baby James finding everyone he knew dead, sentenced to a life of solitude with no answers to his questions. Then his thoughts ran away with that comment about molting and Tony wondered what James was. He probably hadn’t been a cute baby. Cute things generally didn’t peel out of their skin. Nevertheless, his tone was noticeably less harsh although that hadn’t been a conscious choice. “So, no other ships come since then?”

“Yeah, one. They couldn’t leave either.”

“What happened to them, James?” Tony asked, trying for a conversational tone but unable to keep the wariness from creeping in.

“They starved to death,” he replied simply. “I tried to make it easier on them.”

“You mean they got the magic show too?”

“It worked a lot better than on you.” James looked at Tony and his lips curled up a tiny bit. Tony thought he might have detected a tiny bit of fond exasperation in James’ expression, which was a look he was intimately familiar with and rather missed, it turned out. “One of them carried a lot of anger and the other was depressed so at least they spent their last few weeks in a happier state. I think they found some peace.”

“But why couldn’t they synth food from their own ship if not from the station?” Tony asked.

“If there are food synths on the station, I haven’t been able to identify them and they got here running on fumes, like you. Like everyone who winds up here. It’s really just a graveyard,” James added quietly. “There’s something else you should know.”

Tony very much didn’t like the sound of that.

“Your ship’s instrument readings weren’t correct. I mean they were, but you saw a modified version.”

Tony was simultaneously glad he didn’t have to defend his ship’s honor and unhappy that he could guess where this was going. “OK…”

“You travelled much further than to the edge of human charted space. The GATE system is a pretty extensive network of streams. I can only guess that a glitch bumped your course into a stream your people haven’t discovered yet.”

“How far?”

Using his index finger, and approaching the nearest wall, James tapped at it. “If this point represents your origin galaxy,” he said, before delineating a square area roughly a couple of feet across around the point. “And this represents the extent of human charted space,” he continued before he turned and walked down the hall about thirty feet. “Then this is how far you’ve travelled.”

Tony stared after him. “My God. I can never go home.”

James looked at him sadly as he walked back. “Even if you could find the stream and somehow exit it near your destination, everyone you knew would be long gone. They’re already long gone.”

Tony let James’ words settle on him like a weight as he felt some of the fight leave him. “Well, you sure were right about this being a shitty situation.”

Tony was seated on the floor a few minutes later, deep in thought while James stood a few feet away, leaning on the wall.

“But there must be power here if I’m still breathing to live through this illusion. Or am I dead? Is this what death looks like? Is that why the burger was so good? I had kind of hoped death would be an eternal lab with all of the latest equipment and you know, something to power it,” Tony said pointedly before his eyes widened dramatically. “Unless I’m in hell and that’s the punishment. Oh my God, that’s it isn’t it?”

“Yeah, you’re not dead,” James said giving him a grimace that might have been intended as a smile. “There is power but only enough for basic life support; you know, 02, N2, C02 removal. And that’s been routed to just the small part of the station we’re in. And about the temperature, there isn’t enough heat for comfort. It’s always cold.”

“So, in reality, does any of this look like the actual situation?” Tony asked, indicating the space around them.

“Yes and no,” was the totally unhelpful reply.

Tony rolled his eyes at that before a new worry dawned on him. “Uh, what do _you_ eat then?” He really hoped James wasn’t some sort of predatory creature with a taste for human who didn’t eat often and was hungry.

James snorted. “Sorry, I know it’s an invasion of privacy for you but I can’t help reading you. I can’t turn it off or maybe it’s that I don’t know how to. That’s how I know you hate it. And how I know enough to like you. But I won’t eat you. I eat various metals and minerals from the ships that came here, space dust and extraneous station parts. Nothin’ organic.”

Tony reflexively tried to bury his relief at not being dinner before remembering he couldn’t hide his emotions from James. It seemed demeaning to feel grateful for not being eaten. “OK, I’m hearing no hot showers and is there really such a thing as extraneous station parts?” The cost of building anything in space was always astronomical but he didn’t expect an answer to a mostly rhetorical question.

James looked caught out for a moment, eyes round, before he glanced away and rubbed the back of his neck again. “Well, uh. The interior wall panels in the larger suites, like yours, are made from this particular alloy and aren’t really necessary for survival, they’re mainly decorative and they’re just... They’re just really, really good. Sorry.” James had ducked his head and was mumbling by the end, clearly embarrassed.

And ok. That was. Something. Despite the horrible nightmare of a situation Tony found himself in, he was fighting a lip twitch as the thought of James snacking on the bedroom walls almost derailed his focus. At least it seemed that James was taking _all_ his questions seriously as he had promised.

Tony schooled his face into something more appropriate for his perilous situation. “Huh. So, was any of what you said earlier about the power source factual? If I’m free to try and save my life, I need information and fast. Running out of time here if there’s no food for me.”

James visibly perked up at the topic change. “Same as what I told you. There were fifteen external arrays but only part of one is operational now. The rest are still there though. Took some heavy damage from what I assume was a storm of some sort that time.”

“Did you try and repair them?”

“Yeah and I got the one back up but I’m lacking the appendages for the fiddly work.” James held up his right hand and flapped it at Tony as if that would clear things up.

“Uh, right, because you don’t look like you?” Tony asked, indicating all of James.

“Yeah,” James confirmed. “Not human remember? This place was made by and for beings with tiny opposable digits.”

“Tiny opposable digits... OK James. What do you really look like?”

James regarded him with a sad look. “Tony,” he then breathed out. “I don’t want to show you. Not yet anyway. Please?”

Tony had no idea what was to be gained by the continued illusion. “Why? How much worse can this incredibly shitty situation get?” Tony asked, sounding a little shrill as he gestured wildly at everything.

“Uh, you might be surprised?”

“Look. Seeing an alien isn’t going to ruin my day. Have plenty of experience. Are you really fugly or something, is that it? Or just shy?”

“Based on previous reactions, I’m going to go with horrifying?” James said. “But I don’t know what fugly means.”

“Ha, well.” Tony wished he hadn’t said that now that he had to explain it. “It uh, means fucking ugly.”

“Oh. Ok. Maybe that too.” And didn’t he just look dejected.

Tony’s eyebrows climbed his forehead. “Well that seems unfair if it’s just based on your looks. I promise you, as long as you don’t look like any of my exes, we’re tickety-boo.”

“Well,” James sighed. “OK, if it’s what you really want Tony.”

He straight up ignored the sad looks from James. It couldn’t possibly be that bad. “Hit me with it,” he said, giving James his best showman’s smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> two cliffhangers in a row was not my M.O - just worked out best when I split this into chapters. still, I feel apologetic


	4. Chapter 4

The corridor around him seemed to shimmer at the edges of his vision before Tony’s sense of space got a hard jolt, leaving him prickly from a wave of cold sweat as reality reformed to reveal he was in a large, dark and empty room. Tony faced an open doorway but it was too dark beyond it to see much. There were weak lights illuminating the space at intervals but it was still hard to make out the details. Some kind of organic film covered most of the surfaces, giving them a ghostly appearance that made Tony’s skin crawl. He looked down at himself next and saw that he was still dressed in his flight suit and it was filthy. More alarming was the fact that he was restrained to the wall by the same organic material and it covered most of his torso and legs in a fine web. He tried to move and started to panic at the resistance it gave him.

“Why am I restrained?” he barked out, beyond caring about the anxiety evident in his voice as the room’s acoustics amplified it.

“You’re not,” came James’ voice although it sounded different. “There’s no gravity – it’s just to keep you from driftin’ around. And to help keep you warm. You can tear it fairly easily, just pull at it.”

Tony did that and soon found himself floating free, sinking his hand into some of the webbing on the wall, delicate and briefly sticky like Velcro, as he scrabbled for something to steady himself before turning to see James.

Floating out of the shadows and into his field of vision several feet away was a very large creature, appearing black in the low light. It easily resembled a gigantic spider except for the fact that its thorax didn’t terminate in a head like a spider’s would, but arced upwards to near vertical to form a sort of headless torso studded with many round, black eyes. It had an abdomen and exoskeleton just like an arachnid but with at least twice as many legs including four on the torso section that didn’t reach the ground. There was hair covering the abdomen and all those legs, thick and soft looking, but the exoskeleton and torso looked smooth and shiny, like a beetle carapace, as they caught the light.

Tony took a moment to process his surprise and then let out a low whistle. “Damn. That you, James?”

“Hi Tony,” James confirmed. Tony realized then what was different. James’ voice had the same pitch and accent but he wasn’t hearing it with his ears, only inside his head.

He wasn’t afraid, exactly, and Tony congratulated himself for never having been scared of spiders beyond the knee jerk reaction of finding one on his leg or something, but his heart was still hammering in his chest and he was nervous, because James was easily ten feet tall and there was the whole shitty actual reality thing, so he started to talk. “There’s, uh, this theory of cellular memory and how we humans as a species can remember the things that can kill us, via our cells, passed on from our progenitors. Doesn’t work out for many of us anyway, dying is a thing we’re very good at, but you do bear a resemblance to a species we know as spiders, arachnid class, some very few of which can be deadly. The fact that you’re more than a thousand times larger than them might be what sealed the deal for your previous guests.”

“But not you?” James’ voice filled Tony’s head. It was a strange sensation, as though he could hear it in stereo yet not be sure he’d heard it at all at the same time as being aware of an intrusion or presence in his thoughts.

“Uh,” he floundered. “I always found spiders fascinating? Thousands of different species all with unique abilities, perfectly suited to their environment.” Tony hoped he’d fronted well enough - he didn’t want to give away just how vulnerable he felt. The reasons to be wary of James were multiplying rapidly and he was losing any footing he’d thought he’d had. It didn’t help that James was just so alien that Tony’s body, without his permission, had its own ideas of how to deal with that, fleeing being at the top of the list. Trying to override his physiological reaction, Tony plowed on and attempted to take control of the situation.

“OK, we’ve been introduced, for real this time I hope,” Tony said pointedly. “Since time is of the essence, we can come back to the meet and greet part once my death isn’t imminent. Can we do a recap of where we’re at? Assuming I have the freedom to try and save my life. Am I wrong?”

“Of course, you can Tony. You’re not a prisoner. I’ll help in any way I can,” James promised.

“OK, why continue with the New Brooklyn accent?” Tony asked, almost immediately deviating from his intended line of questioning.

“It’s not like I have anything to revert to so why not, unless it bothers you? I can use a different one or one of the other languages you know.”

“It’s just… Ridiculous? No. You know what? You’re Bucky. Bucky the spider,” Tony said, barking out a laugh that was a touch on the hysterical side to his own ears.

“All right Tony,” Bucky agreed easily.

He cleared his throat and quickly got himself under control. “So, this is where we’re at,” he said, ticking off the points with his fingers as he went. “There’s no power except for minimal life support. There’s no food and I’m going to starve unless I can make some but I need power for that. There would be power except for the broken arrays.”

“That’s about it, yeah,” Bucky confirmed. “Um. Asarti warriors were known to survive lengthy campaigns by drinking each other’s secretions. I could supply you w-“

“Nope. Stop right there.” Tony said, vertical palm shooting out for emphasis while he shuddered at the thought because _holy fuck._ “I’m good for secretions right now but thank you for the offer. We have to find an alternate energy source or fix the arrays. How much time did I lose?”

Bucky didn’t answer immediately so Tony pressed. “You lied and it cost me time I could have been working on the problem. How much time did I lose?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t know your units of time to answer the question the way you want,” Bucky replied.

“Huh, ok.” Tony checked his statband. “It’s been 16 hours since I came out of suspension according to this.”

“We don’t measure time the same way but what you experienced played out in real time. That reading is accurate if your device is functioning properly,” Bucky promised.

“Can I really trust you to be telling me the truth? Because if we’re going to have to get along, you should know I can’t stand liars,” he warned.

“Tony,” Bucky breathed out sadly, or, that’s how it sounded in his head. “Please. I didn’t keep the truth from you out of malice. Based on previous experience it seemed the kindest thing to do.”

That answer only served to make Tony irritated in addition to afraid, panicked and desperate. He could use that though. “OK. One. Never compare me to others. Two. I’m a certified genius which means I have a brain and I intend to use it. Three. Never lie to me again. I need to know where I stand in order to make decisions _for my self_. Clear?”

“Yes Tony. I give you my word. Only the truth,” Bucky replied solemnly.

“Hopefully your word counts for something.” Tony couldn’t seem to help but be petty. At the same time, he acknowledged Bucky’s willingness to take what Tony was throwing at him and started to believe Bucky was being genuine. “So, why wasn’t the power rerouted temporarily to synth food for your last guests? There’d be enough air and heat to last a few hours. Long enough to make them some nutritional paste.”

“I don’t think this station was built by humans exactly like yourself. Humanoid and with similar physiological makeup, given compatible life support and the fact that most everything needs hands like yours to operate, but the technology is so different that the power sources were incompatible. At least without some engineering. I checked all the ships and they weren’t compatible with the station and if there are printers or synths here, then I didn’t find them or recognize them for what they are.”

“I did mention I was an engineer.”

“Yes, and I asked you about the water maker,” Bucky answered patiently.

It took Tony a second to realize what he was saying. “You were trying to get me to show you how to fix it. That’s the state it’s really in?” Tony’s voice rose half an octave with disbelief.

“Yes.”

The change in James’s mood earlier suddenly made sense. “And then you discovered you couldn’t fix it because the fix required hands. Fuck Bucky. Why didn’t you just tell me?” Tony pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut. “How much does it output?”

“I didn’t believe you’d accept me. The others went into shock, Tony,” Bucky said insistently. “It outputs a few drops per cycle. You can have everything it makes,” he was quick to add.

Tony just made a pained grimace. “A few drops. How have you even survived?”

“Oh, each time it runs out, I go to the closest unheated section. It’s not cold enough to kill me but it puts me in something close to stasis. Long enough for some water to collect,” Bucky explained as though this was a reasonable way to live. “I’ve always woken up before organ failure although maybe it’s a little close now and then.”

Tony had no words for a long moment as he contemplated such a miserable existence. He didn’t think he could have persevered in Bucky’s place. “OK. OK, first plan; clean the water maker to at least get better output until it can be done properly. For real this time though,” Tony said pointing a finger accusingly at Bucky. “Second plan; go look at the arrays. See what can be done, figure out what we need. What I need now are tools for the water maker – anything that can clean, chip, pry. Any solvents that can act as descalers, that kind of thing. And then the EVA suit from my ship.”

“I’ll go get the tools,” Bucky said. “You stay here and conserve your energy.” Tony nodded and watched with fascination as Bucky’s long legs all moved into different positions but were perfectly synched with each other as he float-walked to the doorway and then, gripping the frame with his forelegs and getting his remaining legs braced under him, pushed off and launched himself forward, becoming a blurred black torpedo shooting down the dark hall and quickly disappearing from view.

Tony was left to his thoughts and all he could focus on was the cold. James had been right earlier. He could see his breath and felt so chilled that he could swear his bones were colder than the rest of him. His brain seemed to be freezing as well, given that he should be planning next steps but seemed incapable of doing anything but shivering and thinking about how weak he was feeling. He knew from his experience with intentional fasting, that time Pepper had convinced him to do a week long water fast _for health and purification_ (that had instead felt like it was going to be the death of him) that his body was well past anything he’d experienced. Even the Ten Rings had fed him when he’d been kidnapped and imprisoned for months on the most arid, desolate and foodless planet in the system. Looking himself over he realized he was pretty emaciated which would change his timeline considerably.

Before his thoughts could spiral into darker territory, Bucky returned carrying a box of tools with his forelegs, and indicated Tony should follow. He floated after Bucky to get to the water maker which turned out not to be too far away.

“Just. Stay over there. For now,” Tony directed with his index finger when Bucky had hovered close enough to make all the hair on Tony’s arms stand up. “Please,” he tacked on trying to soften the order. It had sounded harsher than he’d intended.

Bucky backed up, floating up into the bulkhead and sagging into what maybe passed for a resting position as far as spider aliens went in microgravity. If it was possible for a spider alien to look like it was sulking but in a menacing way, then Bucky was doing it until Tony decided he was anthropomorphizing him. And then Bucky shifted and lowered himself closer to the ground and Tony had a thought that he was trying to appear less threatening which only made him angry because Bucky was obviously picking up on his thoughts or emotions and that must include what he was thinking now. Frustrated, Tony whirled around and went at the panels, trying to clear his mind of everything but the job in front of him.

He did it in reverse order this time and it took a lot longer to get the panels off on his own but he eventually succeeded. He cleaned out the mineral accumulation as much as was possible. New filters would have to be printed but for now he managed to pull them out and knock off as much of the buildup without damaging them as best he could. Most were unsalvageable but he thought enough water would filter through temporarily.

The mechanical setup he could access was spare and seemed deceptively simple. It was designed to run without the assistance of gravity and was a really impressive piece of tech that Tony looked forward to revisiting when he had time to fully appreciate it.

A sore back and a few hours later and he was putting the panels back on, already seeing spheres of water starting to form between the filters. He finished up and looked back at Bucky, cocking an eyebrow.

Taking the unspoken cue, Bucky pushed off from the wall and, giving Tony a wide berth, floated quickly to the collection area a few feet away from the tank and peered at the flexi container affixed to it. “Tony,” he said on a breathless exhale, excitement in his voice.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah!” Tony could see Bucky was practically vibrating with impatience, legs fidgeting as he waited for the container to fill. When it was half full, Bucky used his forelegs to twist the canister off and swinging around extended it towards Tony before squeezing out a large sphere of water that slowly wobbled Tony’s way. He then did the same for himself, leaving the sphere to float before twisting the container back on to the dispenser to catch more water.

Drinking water in 0 G was always a challenge and Tony watched with fascination as Bucky’s forelegs deftly moved the water without breaking it up, to where Tony assumed his mouth was, and then watched the sphere quickly shrink. Bucky repeated this again and again, long after Tony had drunk his fill and then seemed to take satisfaction in turning the lever off, probably for the first time in ages.

“Have to wait a bit to go see the arrays,” Bucky said later, when they were done and after thanking Tony a frankly ridiculous number of times. “The station’s still rotatin’ slowly from back when we had power, and they’ll be in darkness right now. Why don’t you rest up a little and I’ll wake you when it’s time?”

Tony nodded. He was sore and tired and could use a rest before doing a space walk.

“I can take you to where I nest. It’s a little warmer,” Bucky offered.

Unbidden images of spider broods and thousands of alien eggs flashed through Tony’s imagination, causing a full body shiver to rush through him and that was a hard pass. “Uh, I’m good. I’ll just have a look around.”

“But Tony, I can see you’re cold. And you need to rest.” Bucky moved closer and this time Tony flinched and backed up.

“I’m fine. Can’t I be alone? Is my mind not enough or are you going to invade my physical space too?” Tony snapped. He regretted his harsh tone as soon as the words were out of his mouth but he couldn’t say he didn’t mean them.

“Yes, of course. I’m sorry. I’ll find you when it’s time.” Bucky quickly turned around and floated into an adjacent corridor and out of sight.

Tony stared after him. He got what he wanted and felt like a complete ass. Bucky was proving to maybe be decent and, Tony could admit, might have had legitimate reasons for choosing to do what he did. And maybe, he couldn’t help being born a mind reader or whatever it is he was. And it might be unfair to hold it against him even if accessing his mind felt like the biggest violation that Tony could imagine for himself.

He floated around for a bit, exploring some of the corridors and rooms. It was all pretty dark and like Bucky had said, the area with life support was small. Tony didn’t try and open any of the airlock doors and he didn’t come across anything interesting. All the regular doors were open allowing him access but the spaces were mostly unfurnished, covered in webbing and any tech looked pretty basic in terms of its function and wasn’t powered anyway.

He then thought he’d try and get some sleep and tucked himself into a corner of a room that had plenty of webbing. It was soft and helped insulate him from the frigid temperature of the walls. He tore into it to create a sort of belt he could slip behind that would keep him in place. The cold made it difficult to relax but he eventually fell asleep thinking about the possible applications of the webbing only to have a fitful sleep and then a bad nightmare. Usually, he’d experience a sense of relief when waking from one but this time he was pretty sure his current situation was worse.

He didn’t want to sleep after that. Tony started to feel the familiar threads of panic creeping up, related he guessed, to having no control over what happened to him and being dependent on a stranger’s goodwill. A stranger who was a massive, alien, mind reading spider whom he’d been an ass to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> spiders (plural) in the tag is more representative than precise. there is only one spider (alien) in this story. if that helps. and I promise this isn’t a horror fic although admittedly horrific. my aim is to turn it around


	5. Chapter 5

Tony decided to look around some more and see what he could find, mostly as a distraction and if he ran into Bucky he’d apologize for what he’d said. He found the corridor that Bucky had disappeared into earlier and came across what he guessed was his room. There was a large pendant type of nest hanging from the ceiling that reminded Tony of the ones some birds would build back home. This one though had threads in place securing it to the floor, likely to deal with the lack of gravity.

Tony called out Bucky’s name from the threshold and when he didn’t get an answer, he approached the nest and peered inside the opening. It was dark but looked cozy. There were no writhing masses of spider babies or clusters of alien eggs. The nest exterior was made out of woven webbing but it felt stiff and unyielding as though it had been shaped and then hardened. Inside it was lined with a different type of webbing; thick and pillowy, similar to that of the webbing on the station walls but so much softer as Tony discovered when he touched it. Bucky appeared to be a sybarite and Tony instantly regretted having refused the offer of a nap here. This hanging bed could rival any of the high end furniture-as-art pieces Tony had had in his living spaces, curated by whatever superstar interior designer had been hired at the time.

Tucked into a sort of pocket in the nest wall, Tony saw a selection of virtuals and holovids and pulled one out to look at the title. It was part of an educational installment of university level physics from an institution he recognized. Curious, he grabbed another; it taught rhetoric and a third was a space-pirate action adventure that Tony thought hilarious that Bucky would watch. These could have been Tony’s back in school.

Putting everything back in its place, he left the otherwise spartan room and continued his search for Bucky. He made his way down to the end of another corridor, the only place he hadn’t been yet, and came to an air lock door. It was a dead end. Backing up a few feet he entered a small room to one side and approached the sole porthole window. The view was from in between two bridges or struts, facing another large part of the station so there wasn’t much starscape to see but Tony studied the exterior build instead. He thought it might be a ring and that he was in the hub and one of the struts had been the corridor he’d just walked down but it was hard to tell with the limited view. It wasn’t in the sparkling condition that it had been when he’d first seen it through Bucky’s augmented reality but it wasn’t in complete disrepair either. He wondered if there wasn’t some kind of robotic maintenance fleet that was still functioning. He’d have to look into its power source.

As he shifted his gaze to one of the bridges, its closest side lit brightly by the quasar light and stark white, he saw a dark shape silhouetted against it. Tony could plainly see it was Bucky, his legs curled up like any dead spider once there was no heartbeat and blood pressure to keep them extended.

Tony watched Bucky drift lifelessly with disbelief, too shocked to react for a long, long while, willing his brain to have made an error, hoping the dark shape would resolve itself into something else and that it was just a trick of perspective or light. He had no explanation for why Bucky was out there but of course he blamed himself. Tony let out a choked sob, despair coursing through him he cursed himself for fucking everything up, always fucking everything up. Maybe what he’d done was worse than the others. He’d seemed accepting enough of Bucky initially; he’d been willing to talk and work with him only to reject him later. Or maybe Bucky had been alone too long and Tony’s insensitive words had some unmerited significance. He didn’t know but things were usually his fault, he knew this. This time however, he wasn’t going to get a chance to fix it.

He’d let go of the window and was floating in the room curled into a fetal position, hugging himself and feeling overwhelming hopelessness and profound regret.

Numbness and resignation soon replaced the shock and he couldn’t even cry about it.

Time passed and Tony was only conscious of his breaths and the beating of his heart. He wondered how long it would take for his body to fail.

If Tony had been looking out the window, he would have seen Bucky’s body suddenly jerk and his legs slowly uncurl and then Bucky reeling himself in quickly on the silk strand he’d tethered to the station with.

Not much later, Bucky’s mass was suddenly filling the doorway and it completely astounded Tony.

“Tony! What happened?” Bucky cried, sounding panicked.

“Bucky? You’re not dead,” he said stupidly, barely believing what he was seeing.

“No? Oh. You saw me outside?” Bucky asked. He continued at Tony’s nod. “Yeah, I go out there to just drift sometimes. Clear my head. I should have mentioned it.”

A long silence preceded Tony’s reply. “Didn’t uh, exactly come up when I was rude to you earlier,” Tony finally said. “I’m sorry by the way.”

“I understand. I know this isn’t easy,” Bucky said in a kind tone. He shifted a bit and rubbed at one of his legs with another that gave Tony the impression that he was thinking. “I can go out there for a while - can handle the temperature and lack of air for a short time. That’s how I mean to take you to the arrays.

“Oh,” said Tony stupidly again.

“I could also feel that something was really wrong. With you. It’s why I came in. Can I, um, come closer?” Bucky asked tentatively from the threshold.

Tony nodded and as Bucky started to move his many legs to float closer, Tony couldn’t repress the small flare up of fear igniting in his brain. He just couldn’t seem to get a handle on hardwired nature and ignore Bucky’s size and alienness no matter how much he tried to consciously override that reaction. It was ridiculous and he was beyond frustrated with himself. “I’m sorry,” he offered lamely. Bucky had surely sensed his reaction even though he’d given nothing away outwardly.

Bucky halted and regarded Tony for a moment. The space around them shimmered at the edges of his vision and it was suddenly James walking forward, squatting in front of Tony who now found himself seated on the floor, back against the wall with the porthole. The sudden shift in reality was head-spinning and required some serious adjusting. At least this time, Tony knew what was happening.

“You don’t have to apologize Tony,” James said. “I know it’s a lot to take in, all of this, and you’ve been very brave. I know you don’t trust me and maybe I don’t deserve it yet and that’s fine. I did you wrong by not tellin’ you the truth from the beginnin’ but I hope you’ll give me a chance to earn your trust.”

Tony nodded. “Yeah, ok Bucky. Uh, James,” he corrected, letting out a short laugh that was more a hiccup. “I’d really like to try again.”

“It’s easier to talk this way isn’t it? With me like this?”

“Maybe,” Tony agreed reluctantly. “But I don’t like that it is. I don’t want to be prejudiced.”

“I don’t think you are. You’ were talkin’ to me before and you’re tryin’.” James moved to sit and lean against the wall beside Tony, close enough so their shoulders were just inches apart and Tony could feel his body heat, as ridiculous as that was for an illusion. “Maybe when you get to know me, you’ll feel different. When I earn your trust.”

Tony nodded again. “You know all about me. Tell me something about yourself then. From before. About life here with your clan. And I’ll stick with calling this version of you James by the way,” he decided. “If that’s ok,” he added because he was trying.

“I like having a name and two names is even better,” James said, grinning, before turning his head away and leaning it back against the wall, his smile fading as he recounted his story. “I had a couple hundred brothers and sisters. Didn’t know them all but was really close with two sisters. Some of the best times were when we were still small and we’d pile on Ma’s back while she walked around the station. If she was in a good mood, she’d race through the halls, on the walls, ceiling,” James made a spiral motion with his index finger. “We’d all be screamin’ and laughin’, hangin’ on for the ride of our lives.”

Tony had turned to watch James as he spoke. He knew he didn’t have the privacy of his mind that he was used to so when his brain started doing that normally harmless multi-focus thing where he listened to James’ story while also taking in details like the contour of James’ nose or the shape of his lips as he spoke or wonder at the authenticity of the reflected light and color on his face, Tony knew he’d have to try a lot harder to lock that down if he didn’t want to embarrass himself. “That sounds like a fun childhood,” he quickly said, in part to get himself to stop.

“Yeah, it was. Then we’d go learn with various teachers, just general stuff, until it was time to be assigned. That happens at third molt. That’s when you have to do all kinds of competency tests; physical, mental, psychic stuff. Dependin’ what the colony was looking for at the time, there might be an emphasis on defense, scientific advancements, breedin’, that sort of thing. I was chosen for combat trainin’. Was really good at most of my tests but got some of the highest marks for fightin’ and tactical skills and physical endurance. One of my sisters was scary good at adjustin’ the tensile strength of her silk and could make it do so many different things. My other sister though, she had a head for math and she was so smart, but the colony wasn’t lookin’ for that at the time and she didn’t make it.”

“Didn’t get an assigned position?” Tony asked.

“Yeah. There’d be not enough spots or room in the station. The colony took a few juveniles from each breedin’ to keep the generational gaps balanced and all the posts filled with the best of ‘em and the rest don’t make it.”

“You said that but what does _not making it_ mean? Does it mean what I think it means? Because holy fuck James!”

“Yeah, they’re recycled but it’s not like we all don’t know it’s a possibility from the beginnin’. It’s our duty to do what’s best for the colony. It’s pragmatic Tony, with limited resources and batches of babies by the hundreds.”

“Recycled,” Tony said flatly as he tried to process that. It sounded so unbelievably heartless. “So, you would have accepted that fate had it been you?” asked Tony disbelievingly. He couldn’t conceive of it for himself. He just wouldn’t have accepted it.

“Yes,” James answered simply, turning to look at Tony. “Maybe you don’t understand because you’re from an individualist culture. Sure, I wanted to live but I would have done my duty if I hadn’t been picked. There wouldn’t have been a place for me to go anyway.” James turned away and leaned his head back against the wall again. “Doesn’t mean I didn’t miss my sister though,” he added after some time.

They sat in silence for a while, Tony digesting what James had told him. He contemplated the reality of living as part of a group where the individual was not important. He thought he might be allergic to that idea. Maybe his perceived individualism was just an illusion anyway but it was a comforting one. It was all he had at this point, really.

“One of my teachers taught me how to meditate, control my breathin’ and core temperature, that sort of thing, and it wasn’t too long before I had some down time after trainin’ and was floatin’ outside, like just now, and you know the rest.”

Tony thought James seemed relatively well adjusted from their few conversations. For someone brought up to serve a community however and who wouldn’t have been encouraged to have much of an identity beyond a collective one, his current situation must be intolerable. So of course, Tony just outright asked. “I still want to figure out how long you’ve been here on your own. You know, to help me rate your sanity,” he joked.

James wasn’t offended and actually leaned over and bumped Tony’s shoulder with his own in retaliation, which again, was such a human gesture. “I’m plenty sane. Probably,” he said with a sly smile.

Tony grinned at him. “Uh huh.”

“I made a record of the quasar’s position relative to the station at some point in the early days. Maybe you can use that if you can figure out the station’s orbit time in your measurements.”

“Yeah, good thinking James.” And it was. Just because Bucky wasn’t able to complete a lot of the functional tasks in the station because of his physiognomy didn’t mean he wasn’t smart. He so obviously was not to mention the mental fortitude he must have to survive the isolation and not have it cripple him. “So how did you pass the time on your own?”

“Back when there was power, I worked on learnin’ how to maintain the station to the best of my ability. It’s pretty big and it kept me busy. I learned a lot from what was left in the docked ships plus there were games and Virtuals for their crews, that sort of thing. After the power went out and the system that kept the water filters operational mostly stopped functionin’, I was in the cold room a lot. Wasn’t much to do either in the small section we’re in now but I have some routines I’ve been stickin’ to. Self care, mental and physical exercises, checkin’ the exterior of the station and doing any maintenance I can. Try and give me some purpose. Live in my head a lot though, dreamin’ up stories. Sometimes findin’ the motivation to keep goin’ is hard. That’s about it really,” he said, shrugging one shoulder.

“You know you’re brave too James. Bucky. Not many could have handled the isolation so well, and I’m thinking it was extra hard for you since you started so young.”

“Yeah, well. I don’t feel very brave.”

“I don’t either so we either both are or not,” Tony said with a wry smile. “Maybe we were just too dumb to die.”

James laughed and Tony felt warmed by his reaction. “What’s your family name out of curiosity?”

“I couldn’t tell you with words. It’s more of an experience but I can show you, if you want?” James asked a little hesitantly.

Intrigued, Tony agreed and soon he felt foreign thoughts forming vivid images in his mind as though he was recalling a very immersive memory of his own. Tall purple grasses surrounded him, taller than him and they swayed and whispered in the breeze. A scent permeated the warm air that he equated with earthy freshness although it wasn’t one he recognized as such. Chirps, clicks and the droning sounds of alien organisms were all around him – it was a haunting and gorgeous sound.

The memory moved him forward and he passed through the grass and into an open clearing. He was at a high elevation and Tony felt like he was standing in the sky; long pink cloud formations streaked through the sweeping azure blue above him and the landscape laid out below was seemingly endless, sharp and clear with little atmospheric haze. Lush vegetation in purple hues dominated to one side of a brilliant blue river that snaked to the horizon. To the other side was a massive expanse of sparkling, dazzling, cubic mineral formations reflecting light, or that is what it looked like to Tony. The false memory also evoked strong emotions of longing, of pride, of belonging. He was astounded at how visceral it was – it was like a punch to the gut in its intensity. He almost felt choked up about a memory of a place that wasn’t even his memory.

“That was. Wow,” was all he could manage when it ended. James would surely feel how it had affected him anyway so maybe the words weren’t important.

“The clan name is tied to our home world. We left hundreds of generations ago because the planet wasn’t going to be habitable for much longer, but we’re still connected to it through our name. We’ll always remember,” James said a little wistfully. “Actually, I’m not sure there’s a we unless other clan members made their homes elsewhere. I didn’t learn about that.”

It hadn’t occurred to Tony that Bucky might be the last of his kind if there hadn’t been other colonies who had successfully emigrated. His loneliness must have been magnified even more in the face of that kind of annihilation. Everything taken from him except the present. Tony had no words.

James broke the ensuing silence. “If you’re feeling up to it, we can go get your suit now. I’ll have to change us back though.”

“Yeah, I’m good,” Tony nodded. “Thanks James. Bucky. For everything.” He found that he really meant it too.

James got up and offered a hand to Tony. He blinked up at James for a moment and then took his hand and allowed the assist. James then took several steps back before the space shimmered around them and Tony found himself floating once again with Bucky the spider in the small room. And he was totally fine with it.

“Lead the way, Itsy Bitsy,” he said, not feigning anything.


	6. Chapter 6

Bucky led Tony to where his ship was docked. They passed through an airlock but the area beyond still had life support but with much less oxygen and even less heat. Tony guessed this is where Bucky had come to cold sleep while waiting for water to collect. He gathered that the area of the station they were in was roughly pie shaped then, from hub to the outer ring, the latter being the wider end and where his ship was.

Tony set about removing most of what he’d brought and soon they were floating his many cases of tools and equipment that he’d planned to use during his retirement back to their area. Between the two of them they secured everything quickly; Tony was finding spider silk incredibly versatile and he’d already thought of a dozen applications he’d like to develop. He then selected several tools he thought might be useful for the arrays repair and declared he was ready to go.

Bucky presented him with some fat silk threads looped over one of his forelegs. “Can you make me a harness? We’ll tow back any parts we want and you can hold on to it too for safety.”

“Sure thing, Spideroo.” Tony thought for a moment how best to do it and then gave Bucky an end to hold with the little pincers he had on two of his forelegs, before pushing the rest between Bucky’s legs from the side, aiming to get the silk looped under him and through to the other side. Tony’s hand brushed against Bucky’s underside as he was doing it and he found it was covered in short, fine hair.

“You’ve been holding out on me!” he exclaimed.

“What?” Bucky asked, still facing the same direction and unable to see Tony.

“May I?” Tony asked in a token attempt at consent while wiggling his fingers an inch from Bucky’s belly.

“I don’t know what’s happening,” Bucky said, still unable to see.

“This is incredible,” Tony said, now plunging both hands up into the ridiculously soft hair with abandon. “Sorry, but this fuzzy tum is three-ply teddy bear plush, it’s unbelievable.”

“I still don’t know what’s happening but you seem pleased?”

“Yeah Buckyboo, you’re just full of surprises,” Tony said giving him one last stroke before continuing with the harness.

After running the length around Bucky’s body and taking the end Bucky held, he tied the first loop off on top of his back. From that vantage point, Tony looked around and was surprised at the state of things up there. “You’ve got at least an inch of dirt crusted on you up here.” Bucky was so clean looking and shiny everywhere else that it was a big contrast.

“Can’t reach. We’d normally take care of that for each other in the colony. Not designed to be alone, I guess,” Bucky said. “Tried scrapin’ it off but ran into some problems,” he added.

“We’ll give you a good cleaning when we get back then.” As Tony floated backwards, measuring out a segment before starting the second loop, he turned to check where he was going and noticed something further down Bucky’s back that didn’t look like the rest of his exo. “Um, Bucky,” Tony said after he’d floated closer and poked at it curiously causing Bucky to give a whole-body flinch and shudder. “Sorry!” The object felt and looked like metal. “What is it?”

“Had some stuff fall on me back when there was gravity,” Bucky replied.

“You’ve been walking around with a piece of metal embedded in you all this time? Why didn’t you say? We can take it out!” Tony said, incredulous. “Doesn’t it hurt?”

“It’s fine Tony. I’m used to it, been there a while. Might bleed if it comes out. Best to wait but I’ll take the help once we’ve got you squared away, ok?”

Tony considered that and it did make sense. If Bucky needed recovery time it would be better if that happened after the visit to the arrays as Tony’s time was running out. It didn’t mean he felt good about it though. “As soon as we get back in then,” he said firmly.

Soon Tony was suited up and bobbing along like a balloon while holding on to the harness as Bucky led them out through a second lock into the unheated, airless part of the station.

“Holding on good?” Bucky asked and at Tony’s confirmation, he braced his legs against the door frame and pushed off. They rocketed down the corridors while Tony held on and whooped it up, marveling at Bucky’s ability to transform into a sleek torpedo.

Bucky took them to the hangar but it looked little like the one he’d visited via Bucky’s augmentation. It was similarly vast but with fewer vessels and all of them in disrepair. Some were little more than the skeletons of ships while others were covered in webbing, with many parts noticeably missing and Tony assumed, eaten.

They made their way to the nearest bay doors and set about cranking them open manually. If they were going to be bringing anything large back with them, they’d need the doors to be ready. Tony watched Bucky and saw that he had little difficulty with this mechanism as he was able to get his forelegs in between the segments of the turn wheel. He was strong and made short work of the job before taking over for Tony with an admonishment for him to conserve his energy.

Soon after, they were out in space. Using secured silk lines that he had placed before and slightly sticky feet, Bucky slowly crawled along the station surface, careful to never lose contact with it. He’d stressed repeatedly to Tony that he had to be tethered at all times either to the station or to Bucky. It would only take a moment’s inattention to lose footing or grip. There was always something pinging around out here from the accretion disk and it was much more dangerous than a normally dangerous space walk.

Tony gripped the harness tightly and eventually shifted to ride atop Bucky’s back, looping his legs through it for extra security. They had to make their way from the dock at the outer ring to the top of the hub where the arrays were. The station was massive but the time flew for Tony as there was so much to take in between the station’s build and the beauty and vastness of the galaxy around them.

Bucky stopped several times to repair the silk line which had frayed or come apart in a few spots but he made quick work of it. After walking along the outer part of the ring for a bit, Bucky turned 90 degrees and walked over and across it to get to a strut, heading for the hub. Tony’s breath was taken away by the distant quasar that had come into view with the change of direction. The matter ringing it was visible to the naked eye and the effect was breathtaking. Tony had never been anywhere near a supermassive black hole and he doubted many had, especially this close. At least not if they were human. He wondered about the station’s builders and their ability to design a place that could reap the benefits of arguably one of the most dangerous locations in existence.

He could now see the station more clearly. The outer ring, which would likely use spin gravity when operational and was the habitation portion of the station, was connected to a massive hub by a number of short spokes; there wasn’t much distance, relative to the scale of the station, between the ring and hub, unlike the more spindly designs he’d seen that used spin gravity in the past. Tony guessed that in addition to the water maker, all the mechanicals would be housed in the hub which meant he’d be going back there to sort out the power.

The array beds, located on the top surface of the hub, were several rows of maybe 30-foot vertical structures built to hold large, mesh collection plates. Reaching them, Tony could see most were badly damaged; bent at angles formed away from pivot points, mesh torn off, missing pieces entirely. They would only be good for parts apart from a few which appeared relatively intact.

After a look at the unit that was partially functional, Bucky brought Tony over to the next best. “I couldn’t get the pins in this one once I brought it upright but I think the missing pins and the mesh pan were the only damage. This one might be our best bet for today. If we could get it functional, that would more than double the power we currently have.”

Making sure his safety line was fastened to Bucky securely, Tony floated off Bucky’s back before drifting over and getting familiar with it. It appeared undamaged apart from the collection surface having separated from the frame in several areas but that didn’t look like a difficult repair. Otherwise, all that was needed was for the upper arm to be rotated 90 degrees on its main pivot and then locked into place, fully extended. They’d just have to source pins from one of the other units.

They scavenged the parts easily enough. Tony repaired the connection points of the collection surface by stitching it to the frame with wire he’d brought and then tied off to the station while Bucky raised the array and held it steady. It was then fairly straightforward to insert the pins and lock everything into place. Next, Tony managed to improve the one Bucky had partially working. Where the upper half of the structure hinged had been damaged and it couldn’t extend to the full height, listing at roughly 65 degrees. Tony replaced the hinge and brackets and Bucky was able to push it fully upright before Tony locked it in place.

They then selected the next best one; it was deformed but had all its parts which would be useful for schematics from which to print later on. They detached it from the footing and then tied it to Bucky’s harness for towing.

As they were carefully making their way back to the hangar, Tony sitting astride Bucky and the array floating behind them, a sudden, massive and prolonged shudder beneath them caused Bucky to lose his grip on the station’s surface. He briefly flailed before grabbing for one of the leads, sending Tony tumbling off his back, grateful for the silk line that kept him tethered to Bucky. Before Tony could ask, the reason for the shakeup became apparent.

“Look!” Bucky shouted, having turned to face what he was talking about.

From where he was floating, Tony could see the habitation ring had started to rotate.

“The gravity’s back on!” said Bucky excitedly while he turned back around. “Means life support will be fully on too. Tony, you did it!”

A deep sense of relief and elation washed over him. Maybe he had a chance after all; this had been half the battle. There was no way he could’ve done it on his own however. “Wasn’t alone Spideroo. We’re a team. Remind me to show you how to high five. Extremely important to know that if you’re going to be interacting with humans.”

“You’re the only human I’m interactin’ with.”

“I stand by what I said.”

“Gotcha.”

The return trip passed quickly and once inside, the full effect of the artificial gravity hit them and the array Bucky was pulling suddenly became a few thousand pounds of dead weight.

“Don’t worry Tony. I can carry this.”

“Yeah, you’re pretty strong aren’t you Itsy Bitsy? But why don’t we leave it here for now and we’ll come get it after the next things on the list are sorted. Looks like there might be enough power to work with.” Tony slid off Bucky’s back and detached the parts from the harness.

“OK, right,” Bucky agreed amiably as they started to walk. “So now that there’s an available power source, you’ll have to adapt it to use with your tech. What do you need to do it?”

“Well, I’ll need to see the converter first, see what we’re working with. Do you know where that is?”

“The power station is in the central hub, near our area. There will still be microgravity there though.”

If he survived this, he was going to give his body a well-deserved vacation. Crazy stuff like bed time, bath time, meals, the works. At least with microgravity, he wouldn’t have to deal with his body weight which was quickly becoming a problem in his EVA suit. ~~~~

“We can go there now or do you want to take a break?” Bucky asked, maybe sensing Tony was having trouble.

“Nope, now we’re getting that piece of metal out.” Bucky started to protest but Tony wouldn’t hear it. If he didn’t make it, he at least wanted to do that for Bucky and make sure his quality of life was a little better.

Not making it was top of mind as he struggled with each step in that suit, at least until Bucky noticed and insisted Tony get on his back after finding a step ladder in the hangar. Tony had to admit the starvation was noticeably affecting him now. He was feeling really weak, had started to shake, had the mother of all headaches and his heart was beating hard enough for _him_ to be worried about it. Not to mention that it was getting hard to breathe in the suit.

It would be a while before the station’s air was breathable and the pressure equalized everywhere so Tony waited just until Bucky stepped through the airlock into their space before sliding off and shedding his suit, glad to be out of it. He thought he might like to panic or freak out just a little bit but there wasn’t time so after taking a few deep breaths, he set about collecting the things he’d need. Instead, he thought about how Bucky’s movements had changed. His liquid, slinky float-walk in 0 G had turned into a gait that could only be described as a menacing prowl that covered ground quickly, efficiently and quietly. Until he got to the first door frame. With Tony still on his back, Bucky had been most of the way though when his abdomen had bumped one side of the frame and then bounced off the other side and again as he squeezed through, legs straining, ungracefully and unselfconsciously. Tony had managed not to laugh out loud and to stay upright and not lose his grip on the stepladder he’d brought with him from the hanger. He was pretty proud of himself.

After gathering some cleaning supplies, Tony used the ladder to climb Bucky and got started on the accumulated dust and grime. He got most of the dirt off with a stiff conventional broom and then used a cloth and buckets of soapy water to wash away the rest. Bucky was completely silent while his back was washed but Tony could feel tremors intermittently throughout Bucky’s body and he didn’t know what that meant. “Is this uncomfortable for you? I can try and be quicker.”

“No Tony,” Bucky replied. “I’m just not used to being touched. It feels really nice. Makes me want to cry like a baby though, I don’t know why.”

Tony hadn’t considered that Bucky could cry. It had always seemed to him like such a messy human reaction. Good to know other species could fall victim to biological inconveniences too. “Add regular grooming to the to-do list then,” Tony said, giving Bucky a soothing pat. “Get hands on you more often.”

Tony was glad for something to talk about that would serve as a distraction for Bucky and to calm his own nerves. He knew next to nothing about Bucky’s physiognomy and was used to feeling more confident with his skills. He was essentially going to perform surgery without knowing anything about his patient’s body.

“For humans, touch is good for our health and it sounds like it might be for you too. It releases a number of different feel-good chemicals in our brains and helps make us feel happy and connected with others. Lack of touch actually contributes to feelings of depression in some humans. I’d guess there was lots of touching when you were living with your colony but then you went so long without. It could explain the emotional response.”

Tony had grabbed his ship’s medical kit along with his tools earlier and now had it balanced on Bucky’s clean back as he considered how to remove the piece of metal. If it didn’t come easily, they might have to delay the attempt until a scanner could be set up to see if there were complications to consider. He disinfected the area with a cold-plasma needle and then placed everything he thought he’d need within reach. “OK, ready?” he asked Bucky.

“Ready,” Bucky said in a determined tone.

Tony gripped the metal end like a sword handle and pulled. After a few moments of resistance that had Tony grimacing as he saw the meat of Bucky’s wound, which had healed around the injury, stretch with the metal as he pulled it, it started to come free and then slide away easily enough. Bucky made no sound but trembled underneath him as Tony pulled a metal bar at least three feet long out of Bucky’s back. And then came the blood. Flinging the bar to clatter noisily on the ground, Tony quickly began to apply pressure and plug the wound with gauze before taping it in place as blue blood seeped through his fingers and all around his hands. He talked throughout the process, letting Bucky know what he was doing every step of the way since Bucky couldn’t see for himself.

He had to apply fresh gauze several more times until the blood started to clot and the flow slowed enough that he could let go. “Ok, think we’re in the clear. How are you doing?”

“I’m fine Tony. It hurts but feels so much better at the same time,” Bucky said while turning around to put many eyes on the metal bar on the ground. “Can’t believe that was stuck inside me all this time. Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it. Anything for my best spider,” Tony said while stroking Bucky’s back in what he hoped was a comforting manner. He then swore he felt a sensation building that might be described as an inner glow. It felt warm and yellow, like there was joyful light inside of himself and then he was recalling a memory he’d long forgotten, when he was around four and picnicking with his mother and some others. They were seated on the grass in a park and his mother was laughing merrily as he held a wobbling buttercup to her chin, looking for the yellow reflection that would confirm she loved butter. The effect lasted for about 20 seconds before fading and leaving Tony with a pleasant afterglow and a surprised smile. He wondered if Bucky had given him some sort of psychic hug. Then he wondered what he had to do to get more because he could get used to that.

Later, after Bucky had taken Tony to the power station and then left to fetch some more tools Tony had requested, he’d been looking at one of the instrument panels when a sudden dizzy spell made things so much worse. He knew that going back to a microgravity environment wasn’t helping his blood flow but the mechanicals were all in the hub and he had no choice. His heart was pounding though and he thought he should probably lie down for a few minutes, so it didn’t have so work so hard. He headed back in the direction of the habitation ring and had just reached it before he felt an uncomfortable film of cold sweat cover him and his vision started to get dark. He realized he was losing consciousness and tried to get to the ground to lie down but blacked out before he made it all the way.

When he came to, it was to the sound of Bucky in distress. Tony was laying on his back, acutely aware of the cold metal floor as Bucky hovered over him and gently jostled him with the tips of several of his legs and placed quick, soft touches on his arms, neck, forehead, cheeks.

“Tony! No, no, please wake up. Tony, please.” Bucky, who so far had been calm and not given to displays of emotion sounded so heartbreakingly desperate, that it hurt to hear.

He did not want to die yet. There were still so many things he wanted to do, so much he was curious about. If he’d been alone, maybe he would have found it easier to just give in and stop fighting. The odds were stacked against him and in darker moments he might have found it pointless to keep going when there was no obvious end goal, like being able to go home. He felt like he’d been fighting for most of his life and instead of a comfortable retirement on his terms, he’d be living out his days in a tin can far from anyone he cared about. It seemed more like a sentence. He wasn’t alone though and Bucky was the one who had been living that sentence. 

Tony wanted to keep trying. For himself, because he believed he deserved some peace and even though this place wasn’t what he’d chosen for himself, it had potential to be what he needed. And for Bucky, who was going to be Tony’s companion for the foreseeable future if he survived this. Maybe they could be good friends. Not to mention that all this was just _interesting_. Discovering a different species with an invasive but admittedly incredible way of communicating (he wasn’t denying he thought James something else,) learning about the technology in this place, the opportunity to study a quasar and all the other possibilities of living here and doing what he wanted, appealed to him.

It seemed it was in his power to bring them both some happiness and all he had to do was stay alive.

Tony swallowed and unstuck his dry mouth, before opening his eyes and squinting up at Bucky. “So, talk to me about those secretions?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *for anyone secretion averse, there will be no going into great detail about those secretions in this story. 
> 
> **am on month 5 of Covid related touch deprivation and just realized I was identifying more than I'd like to when describing Bucky. at least I have a cat who expresses affection with head butts and wiping her wet nose on me. never would have guessed there’d be a time in my life I’d be appreciative of cat snot.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> James and Tony get together in this one. Nothing explicit.

“Why would anyone prefer thinking one thing but saying another? What’s the point of it, Tony? I get that it isn’t always intended as deceit but it seems so troublesome,” Bucky complained.

Tony’s forehead creased in thought as he took a long sip of hot coffee and enjoyed the feeling of steam on his face.

“God, how do I defend this?” he wondered out loud. “Ok. It’s a coping mechanism. It’s a way of buying time or protecting one’s own interest or furthering it. Social lubricant. It’s so ingrained that we all just do it. That’s probably not a satisfactory answer for you. Think about it though. Your kind knows right away what another’s intentions are. We don’t always. We either use our experience to guide us through interactions or we have to take one another’s word for it and one of us could be lying, even to ourselves without being aware it. Or we need more data in order to make any kind of decision. And yes, put like that, we sound like a mess.”

“That would be the design flaw I guess,” Bucky said and Tony thought he might have sounded a little smug which, fine, he was entitled to his opinion even if he was mostly wrong. “You wouldn’t have to deal with any of this if your minds were open to each other,” Bucky continued.

“You would if the privacy of your own mind was at all important to you!” Tony said, nearly spilling his coffee as he gesticulated with his free arm. “My autonomy starts with what’s in my head and it’s the thing I value the most. It’s what defines me. I don’t know that I’ll ever get used to losing my privacy and you being able to read my thoughts,” Tony said before holding up a finger to stall Bucky so he couldn’t do something like apologize, again, for who he was. “It’s been a hard lesson, dropping the act I wasn’t even aware of playing sometimes, but I can admit it, ok? I can admit it’s also freeing. You know everything there is to know about me and you still seem to like me, so.”

“I really do,” Bucky readily agreed. “I like your mind. It’s noisy, busy – there’s a lot going on. It reminds me of home when I was small. It was never quiet and you could hear voices all the time. Just background noise if you weren’t paying attention but it was comforting. I think I’ve had enough silence for my lifetime Tony.”

Bucky rubbed one of his legs against another and Tony had learned that meant he was considering what to say next and didn’t interrupt. “I told you the humans before you were predominantly ruled by negative emotions. You’re so different. Even when things aren’t good, your mind is always full of possibilities. Wondering how to make things better, how to improve them. And the nature of that kind of thinking is hopeful. You’re not afraid of change and you don’t just adapt but innovate and lead the change when it falls to you. I know I don’t have a lot of experience with others but even I can tell that you’re pretty special.”

Before Tony could do anything other than clutch his mug to his chest and wonder what to say to that, Bucky pressed the button on the leg band he was wearing and invoked the virtual keyboard Tony had made for him. Tony watched him type out a request asking JARVIS if he had eyes on where a particular tool might be before going off in search of it, letting JARVIS’ reply guide the way.

Tony stared after him, watching Bucky’s dark form soundlessly reach the doorway where he did that thing again, bumping and squeezing his way through gracelessly. When he was out of sight, Tony asked his own question.

“Hey JARVIS? If something happens to me, make sure you continue to help Bucky, ok? Keep him company, open jars for him, stuff like that?”

“Of course, sir. I may not be able to assist with jars but anything that is in my power, I will do, you have my word,” said JARVIS. “It is my hope however, that you will have a long and happy life.”

“Thanks J. Mine too. Not ready for the ride to end yet,” Tony said, pausing to take a sip of what was left of his cooling coffee. “We should probably add widening the doors to the to-do list. Although… A case could be made for leaving them. It’s kind of adorable.”

“As you say sir.”

It had been a few weeks since Tony had relented out of desperation and asked Bucky for those secretions. Bucky had come back with a small purple pail, dangling from a white handle shaped to look like a daisy chain, looped over a foreleg like he’d just come back from a day at the beach. The viscous fluid within hadn’t been offensive in any way and Tony figured he was fine not knowing anything more, at least not until he could laugh about it down the road, assuming he survived.

He’d hoped that Bucky’s diet of water and minerals resulted in something that wouldn’t kill him for being too foreign for his digestive system and would give his body something it could use like electrolytes and if he was lucky, calories. Anything that could get him functional long enough to sort out the power conversion.

It in fact hadn’t hurt him and he’d felt better than expected pretty quickly; energized, clear minded and that crushing headache was gone. His heart rate had steadied and the shaking had been reduced to a manageable if occasional tremor.

He had then gotten to work and made a functional converter from the scavenged parts Bucky had brought him from around the station after Tony had given him a shopping list. The first thing he’d used the power for was to run a food synth to take care of his immediate needs which were food and coffee, obviously. Then, he’d gotten JARVIS operational and helping before printing purpose-built converter parts with the printer he’d brought with him. Once that was done, he made an arc reactor and between that and the station’s power, they’d be good for a long while.

Bucky had been fascinated by JARVIS, asking Tony many questions about the learning AI and marveling at his abilities and the fact that Tony could talk to him anytime.

Tony printed the parts for more printers and set to creating the storage and network to expand JARVIS, before creating the legion of little drones JARVIS would control to be his eyes and ears, scattered throughout the station. He only did it after making sure that Bucky didn’t have a problem with the surveillance, welcomed it in fact and Tony was reminded that he had been born into a society which didn’t value or have privacy and he probably liked it that way.

He had quickly created a basic interface for Bucky to communicate with JARVIS until he thought of something better. Bucky could of course hear what JARVIS would tell him but he’d have to use the virtual keyboard to be heard himself.

When he’d presented Bucky with the keyboard as a little gift however, Bucky had just stared at him and had not said anything and Tony had been a tiny bit disappointed. He couldn’t read anything of Bucky’s outward expressions, he didn’t think he had any, but he’d figured Bucky might be happy to be able to communicate with Jarvis since he’d seemed so interested. Instead, Bucky had just stood there, not reacting until Tony noticed his sides were heaving with breath. Alarmed, he looked at his face and saw his eyes were glistening with moisture.

He didn’t get much warning. The shimmering in his peripheral vision signalled one of Bucky’s augmentations but the space around him didn’t change this time which made the transition almost seamless. Instead, James was suddenly there in front of him and then he was gripping Tony in a fierce hug. When Tony had caught up to what was happening, astonished at how real it felt to hold James, he’d hugged back just as tight, his fingers digging into slightly rough cloth and the hard muscle beneath, as James shook silently with raw emotion.

He guessed Bucky had liked the keyboard after all.

Once Tony had regained enough of his energy from several synthed paste meals and some restful sleep cycles, Bucky had taken him to a large storage room where items that had no use but had been deemed as potentially of value were stored. These objects had been collected by the Asarti as they stripped the ships down for edible components. Here, Tony found numerous useful things, both alien and human in origin, such as mining and medical equipment, specialized tools, surface walkers, some items that looked suspiciously like “personal massagers”, medicines, entertainment and learning recordings of all kinds, toys, including the rest of the beach set the pail must have come from and seeds. Tony had been overjoyed to find seeds for many foods he knew and best of all, there were coffee tree beans which he decided right there would become his long-term passion project.

Tony and Bucky had mutually agreed they liked each other’s company without ever saying so explicitly. It was efficient to share a living and cooking space so they got to work on making a comfortable common area they could use when not sleeping or busy with their individual pursuits. Tony intended to have a dedicated shop once the basics were taken care of and looked forward to getting a start on all the new ideas he’d been having recently which included planning for a hydroponic field of coffee plants. Bucky would continue to spend a portion of each day on station maintenance as he’d done in the past. He liked doing it and soon he’d be in command of a squad of cleaning bots when Tony finalized the designs.

Tony didn’t spend a lot of time sleeping so he prioritized the shared space and slept in it on a bedroll that he kept tucked away when not in use. The suites like the one he’d stayed in his fist night needed a lot of work in reality (he thought one of the mattresses he’d inspected had fallen victim to petrifaction,) and he preferred to sleep in the chaos of a renovation over the deserted and slightly creepy feel of the station’s unused rooms.

Three suites would be combined to make the common room and the inner walls would be removed for a large, open area. He’d drawn up a floor plan that included a functional kitchen for himself, both with a food synth and conventional cooking equipment so that he could use the things he’d planned to grow. He had future plans for large scale gardening but for now, there was going to be a green wall to grow the herbs he’d found the seeds for. He was excited to taste fresh oregano, thyme and basil again, their remembered fragrance making him nostalgic for old earth cuisine. Then there was tangy vesary and tingly-spicy luckspine, the main seasonings in a couple of his favourite new planet dishes.

Bucky would have a dedicated printer in the adjoining space that would make his meals. Tony planned to set up a selection of pre-programmed options of Bucky’s favourite foods accessible by easy to press, large, buttons which would yield printed bricks of the selected mineral. Then, there would be another series of buttons representing single elements, which Bucky could combine to produce alloys or chelates if he wanted to try a different molecular recipe or was feeling fancy.

The kitchen was open to the living area beyond it and was very spacious, mainly to accommodate Bucky’s size but Tony was glad for any reason that forced them not to be economical with real estate. It would feel like a real home, where some choices could be dictated by likes over needs and where not everything had to be practical and with multiple different uses as was the norm in space.

Bucky expressed interest in helping to create the space so with JARVIS’ help to manipulate a holo projection of the project and his keyboard, Bucky designed the living room. He did his homework, leaning on JARVIS for the information he needed, and incorporated features that would be comfortable for both species.

He’d asked if Tony wanted to experience what he’d envisioned in order to give feedback and then, changing into James, he created the space around them as it would be based on the plans, and then walked him through it.

Tony was really starting to appreciate Bucky’s unique ability. He didn’t think it would ever get old and wondered how far it could be pushed. No virtual simulations could engage all the senses like Bucky’s did and dreams never felt this real.

The walls were very organic in nature and there wasn’t a right angle to be found. They had a texture that reminded Tony of water ripples left in sand and after watching them for a while he realized they actually undulated slowly. The shifting forms were very meditative and soothing, especially with the play of shadow and light.

Bucky planned for a lot of lighting tucked into various nooks and recesses which lent the space a very warm and inviting atmosphere, not to mention it was beautiful.

The seating area was in a sunken space, the sofa wrapping around three quarters of it, one end being much larger. After asking JARVIS many questions about ergonomics and human furniture designs, he’d come up with seating that looked more like a cloud than a sofa and it was gorgeous.

Behind it, on the higher level, were nooks carved into the wall that held their reading material. There was a hanging leaf chair that looked like it was made similarly to Bucky’s densely woven nest, but based on its size and shape, was meant just for Tony. It was padded with material that was also similar to Bucky’s nest and came with a large, soft and warm looking throw. Nearby was a mountain of pillow-like objects on the floor in various shapes with subtle colours and patterns, which Tony assumed was for Bucky but looked fun and comfortable regardless. He tested that theory by letting himself fall backwards into them and felt them shift slightly until his weight was more evenly distributed. He stayed sprawled like that, smile still lingering as he looked over to find James watching him.

“I love it,” Tony said after a moment before he made things awkward and because he meant it. “Dibs on pillow mountain.”

James snorted but looked pleased. “Yeah? Nothin’ you want changed?”

“Nope. This is perfect. You have a future in interior design. You’ll be the hottest thing this side of the universe, especially with the show and tell feature.”

James grinned back at Tony. “As long as you like it.”

“Nope. Love it,” he said, momentarily captivated by the way James’ smile lit up his face before Tony let his head drop back into the soft pillow things which seemed to defy gravity. They really were something else.

Tony assembled a fabricator in the room and they set to it, tearing down and remaking the walls and floors.

He’d also put together a waldo Bucky could control via a keyboard in order to operate tools that required human hands and Bucky turned out to be the perfect renovation partner. His strength and patience were an incredible asset. Where something might have taken Tony hours or days because he had more limited strength and would have to come back to it after rest periods, Bucky could take care of in a matter of moments sometimes. Where Tony would often jump onto the next thing before finishing the first, because that’s how his brain worked, Bucky was methodical and finished what he’d started and always to a high degree of skill. Soon they were able to divide up the jobs to suit their strengths and became an efficient team.

That part was easy. It was great. Several times however, Tony couldn’t shut down his thoughts fast enough and felt like he’d given himself away. When Bucky would change to James, often to show Tony something but sometimes just for ease of conversation, Tony would find his eyes and thoughts wandering and he just couldn’t help it. James smiled and laughed so easily now and it was absurd how much joy that brought Tony. When it was because of something he’d done or said, Tony would feel his pulse quickening and he’d be reminded of his youth and a nervous desire to impress someone he was interested in. Except he was nearing fifty and the whole situation was unbelievable.

Tony knew he was being ridiculous reacting as though James were a real person. He likened this to being in an imaginary candy store when candy (James) was his favourite thing but he couldn’t touch it or think about it, at least without embarrassing himself. It was torture and yet, he wasn’t about to ask Bucky to stop. Call him a masochist.

Tony began to suspect that his thoughts might become an issue if Bucky was indeed picking up on them. He hoped Bucky wasn’t offended and that this wasn’t going to make things awkward between them but it was not a conversation he’d be starting. 

Several times while working on something, he’d turned around to find Bucky there, possibly watching him. He honestly couldn’t tell what Bucky was looking at half the time, beyond which way he was facing. Tony still couldn’t detect any facial expressions and that didn’t help. Bucky usually didn’t stay silent though; he normally made every effort to communicate his thoughts in order to make up for having such an advantage over Tony. On those occasions however, he hadn’t said anything and those occasions happened to coincide with Tony thinking about James.

He seemed to be stuck on that hug, replaying it in his mind over and over. James had felt solid and warm under his hands, his muscles only giving a little under pressure from Tony’s fingers. He remembered the feel of the cloth coverall James wore; thick and tightly woven and slightly coarse. James’ hair had been trapped between his neck and Tony’s cheek and it had been soft and smelled clean and nice. Tony had felt the warmth from James’ breaths against his skin and it wouldn’t leave his thoughts.

He liked to think that by now he knew himself well enough to be at peace with who he was and what he liked and yet, here he was, falling for a sort-of imaginary person. It was shameful.

The next time James made an appearance, things took an interesting turn. He’d wanted to get Tony’s opinion on a floor covering and showed him what he was thinking of doing via his augmentation.

Tony kneeled down to touch the slightly springy floor material which had shimmered into existence, wondering what it was made of, and when he looked up to ask, saw that James was watching him with a particularly intent expression. His eyes had flicked to Tony’s just as he’d raised his head and Tony got the impression that James had been checking him out. 

Tony gave his opinion on the flooring, Bucky ended the augmentation and they’d resumed their work. Later, when Tony was alone, he reflected on the way James had looked at him. He _knew_ that look; he’d given and received it plenty in the past. The way James had taken him in, it was desire, plain and simple. He was certain he wasn’t wrong. What he didn’t know was why James, Bucky really, would be looking at him like that. They were physically so different and he assumed Bucky would be about as sexually attracted to him as he was to Bucky which was not at all.

But James… James was beautiful. There was no better word to describe him. Physically, James was perfect, exactly the kind of man Tony would swoon over. He was pretty sure his preferences had been informed by the Virtuals he’d been addicted to as a kid, starring James Bucky Barnes.

He already knew Bucky, and therefore James, was open and caring, strived for honesty without judgement, was willing to share and curious to learn; all qualities he appreciated.

And that was a lot unpack. He wasn’t attracted to Bucky but Bucky was James and James was incredibly attractive to him. But to Bucky, Tony would just be a small, pale, nearly hairless being with a soft shell and far too few legs. He didn’t get it.

After another couple of instances where James watched him either with a predatory gaze or tipped his chin up in an unspoken challenge which Tony absolutely didn’t acknowledge, because when it came to stuff like this, avoidance when he didn’t know what to do was best practice in his book, it all came to a head.

He’d been working with Bucky to install the wall panels in the living room, Bucky holding them up as Tony climbed around him to fasten them. When the last fastener was in, Bucky had backed up and mumbled something about not being able to take any more. Tony had looked at him, brows raised in question when the edges of his vision shimmered and then James was striding towards him in all his intense and well muscled glory. Tony soon found himself crowded against the wall.

“I tried doin’ it your way, not talkin’ about it but it’s not gettin’ us anywhere. Tell me you don’t want me and I’ll never bring it up again,” James all but growled at him. “I just need to know. This is drivin’ me crazy,” he said, maximizing his height advantage and looking down at Tony while pressing into his space without touching.

Tony had just gaped up at James, finding himself unable to articulate his thoughts quickly enough for once – James was having that effect on him. He was very sure he didn’t want James to stop but he still wanted to know why or how James was attracted to him.

“I’ll stop, just say you don’t want me like this Tony,” James challenged and Tony couldn’t say that. He couldn’t. He’d said before he didn’t like liars and he certainly wasn’t going to be one. James knew what he was doing all right.

“Can I?” He had reached to touch him but aborted the action several times, at Tony’s continued silence. “Please, let me make you feel good? I know what to do. I know what you like,” he promised in an unfairly sexy, rough voice.

Tony didn’t have a chance. “I uh, can’t decide whether that’s creepy or hot. It’s probably both. And uh, I might like that.” He then briefly looked away before huffing out a laugh. “Yes, yes I do,” he admitted feeling slightly embarrassed, again. He really thought he’d lost the ability long ago but around James, it seemed he felt too much.

Tony could actually feel the heat radiating off James in waves, could smell his scent which he found nothing short of arousing and it made him want to bury his tongue in James’ beautiful mouth. He decided he could wait for the answer to his question. James did not appear to be struggling with his attraction except to keep it in check. Flippantly, as though he hadn’t been considering this for days, as though James hadn’t starred in his daydreams, he agreed. “Sure,” he said. “Go for it.”

At his words, James reached to cradle Tony’s neck and head, gently digging his fingers into the skin at the base of Tony’s scalp despite the intensity of what had been building between them, and then they were kissing, deeply and slowly. The scratch of James’ stubble against Tony’s skin ignited a fire within him and he wrapped his arms around James’ waist and pulled him closer until their bodies were flush, eliciting groans from both of them. James tasted so good, smelled so good and the way he felt... The contrast of his soft lips, wet tongue, hot mouth and hard body left Tony desperate and wanting. He couldn’t get enough.

“This just seems so real,” Tony said, feeling breathless and dazed when they broke the kiss.

James rested his forehead against Tony’s while he traced his cheek with his right hand and let the other trail down to hold Tony’s hip in place. “It _is_ real. I’m makin’ my own choices here and I’m choosin’ to do this with you,” he said, voice low, slightly breathless and impossibly attractive as he slid his metal hand under Tony’s shirt and left a trail of goosebumps in the wake of the slow pattern he drew on Tony’s skin. “And you are allowin’ it and reactin’ to me. Makin’ your own choices. That’s real.”

Tony considered that. He supposed as far as free will was concerned, James was correct. And as far as his brain was concerned, this _was_ really happening. All the feel-good chemicals were being deployed in overdrive and he was in immediate danger of coming in his pants for real.

“Yeah, uh, ok,” he said eloquently as James’ hands traveled from his cheek and back to cup his ass and pull him tighter. “Let’s just go with tha,” is all he managed to get out as James took the opportunity presented him and slipped his tongue into Tony’s willing mouth and used his capable hands to pull him close, pull him out, pull him apart.

Tony was left unable to form coherent sentences, instead dribbling a stream of unrelated words to express his pleasure and encouragement as his senses and body were filled by James in every desirable way.

Despite his earlier anger for having his memories, thoughts and emotions available to James, he could enthusiastically acknowledge that having a lover know everything your body and mind desired, and dedicating themselves to giving it was the superior way to go. Tony also realized he was both forever spoiled and ruined for absolutely anything else.

Much later, when they were finished with each other, or more accurately, when James was finished turning Tony into a single brain cell organism after showing him the most mind-altering sex of his life, he must have fallen asleep (passed out) and Bucky must have moved him. When Tony came to, he found himself sitting on the floor, propped up against the wall in front of the bathroom of the suite and not where he’d last been which was disorienting and not his favourite. Worse, he was indeed wearing come-filled pants and he was stuck to them, making moving unpleasant.

“Bucky!” He called out. He wasn’t around but Tony knew he’d be heard. “If this is a thing we’re doing, make sure I take my pants off first ok? And there’s something called aftercare! With all the snooping you do in my head I’m surprised you didn’t know that!”

He soon heard Bucky’s voice in his thoughts. “Tony, the bathroom is right there. Right in front of you. I figured you’d rather not wake up to me hovering over you. Bit of a mood killer. Am I wrong?”

“Hmm,” Tony pretended to consider it. “I think I’d rather have the aftercare even if it’s from a snoopy alien spider with no respect for basic mental privacy! Is a washcloth too much to ask for around here? I can’t move.”

Bucky couldn’t have been far because he soon huffed through the doorway to the suite, his abdomen bouncing off each side of the frame in that way that made Tony smile helplessly, and if two or three of Bucky’s feet stepped on Tony’s outstretched legs as he walked past to the bathroom, surely it was an accident, not that it hurt at all. That didn’t stop Tony from complaining, loudly.

“Such lack of respect! Is this what I get for putting out before a proper date?”

Tony could hear some objects clattering to the floor and Bucky mumbling a swear before he emerged from the bathroom and came very close to present Tony with a hot, damp washcloth held in a pincer and a clean towel folded over one of his forelegs.

“Sorry for leavin’,” Bucky said and he sounded so upset that Tony wilted. He’d just been joking, mostly, but it seemed as though Bucky had not read his emotions and had taken it to heart. “I’ll do better.”

“Hey, no sorries. We’re figuring this out, ok Buckyboo?” Tony took the washcloth and towel and petted Bucky’s nearest leg and gave it a squeeze. “You’re doing great. I was just telling you what I like. For next time. Because if you think there isn’t going to be a next time after you just blew my mind, among other things, you’d be very, very wrong. There are consequences to ruining someone for anything else. You’ll have to live with that.”

“Oh,” Bucky said after the short pause he probably needed to parse Tony’s words. “Should I… I mean… I’ll give you some privacy unless you need somethin’ else?” he asked, sounding much more like himself.

“I’m good, thanks Buckaroo. You OK?”

“Really good. I’m just. I’m gonna go and come back in a bit then,” he said before walking to the door but not before stepping on Tony again.


	8. Chapter 8

Tony got his answer regarding how it was that Bucky found him attractive. Bucky had told him that procreation within the station colony had been forbidden. One or two male and female breeding pairs from a birth batch would be chosen, just like Bucky had been chosen for combat training. For everyone else, the highly ritualized act was prohibited but sex for pleasure was a completely separate activity. To eliminate the risk of pregnancy, which was understandably a concern on a station with finite resources where one birthing could increase the population by hundreds, the colony adapted their behavior to enjoy their relationships via their mind connections. Because there was no biological need to find a mate to make a healthy brood with, they didn’t seem to have any hang ups about who they chose for their partners. Instead of gender or appearance, one of the main criteria was a good imagination. It sounded like a good time to Tony.

Bucky had explained that story telling was one of the most valued attributes for his colony. Given their beautiful home world and the fact they were confined to a remote station circling a black hole, part of their foreplay or courtship would be the immersive stories they could tell one another via their ability to augment the perception of reality.

So, as he understood it, Bucky wasn’t concerned with Tony’s physical body as far as his attraction went. (He absolutely chose not to acknowledge Bucky’s comment about Tony being small and perfect and cute.) Bucky was instead attracted to everything in Tony’s mind; the ideas, the chaos, the energy and outlook and experiences.

He was still concerned that things were unfairly skewed in his own favor since Bucky knew what Tony liked and wanted but he couldn’t see into Bucky’s mind. He really hoped that it was good for him too.

One night Tony had pressed the issue and James had assured him that what they shared brought him great physical pleasure. He not only got to experience his own but Tony’s pleasure as well through his abilities. James had then given Tony a sly look before admitting that it was like a feedback loop and that everything he did to make Tony feel good only came back to him in kind on top of what he was already feeling.

“So, double the pleasure?” Tony had managed to ask.

“Yeah,” James had replied huskily, nodding into the sensitive part of Tony’ neck where he’d been working on a hickey.

At least Tony found out James’ favourite way to have sex. It was _often_. He was down with that.

One time, James had come up behind him and pressed his body flush with Tony’s back, sliding his arms around his waist before fitting his fingers into the front pockets of Tony’s denims. He’d involuntarily tipped his head back at the contact, James taking the opportunity to nuzzle at his neck.

“I wanna put a thousand eggs in you,” he’d breathed into Tony’s ear.

“What!” Tony had shrieked hysterically, practically falling over as he whirled around to face James in order to point a finger at him. “Don’t ever, _ever_ say that to me again!”

But James had only laughed, loud and long, doubled over, hands on knees.

“You’re joking right? You _are_ joking. Who gave you permission to be a little shit?”

James had wiped at the moisture leaking from his eyes, his voice still coloured by laughter. “I learn by example, what can I say?”

“Betrayed by my own baby spider alien,” Tony had huffed. “You’re the worst. And I mean that. The worst.”

“Doesn’t work like that anyway babe. I’m a male. Surprised you didn’t know that.”

“Fuck off, ok? I’m going to have nightmares for days. And I don’t even know if I want you to comfort me now.”

And that had only seemed to delight James more, the asshole that he was, and he’d just laughed and smacked Tony on the ass as he’d walked by. “We’ll see how long you last.”

Tony didn’t last very long and he wasn’t particularly ashamed either if it meant he got to sleep in James’ arms.

Sharing a bedroom seemed to be the logical next step, mostly because Tony wanted to be able to fall asleep in James’ arms in a bed and wake up in the same place.

They chose the next suite over to their living space. Tony printed new wall panels that Bucky wouldn’t be tempted to eat; these were covered in a coarse grass-like weave and lent the room a cozy and natural atmosphere. He built a large, comfortable bed while Bucky had built himself another nest to hang beside the bed, this one with a wider opening so they could be visible to each other.

Not in a thousand years would Tony have guessed that he’d find himself in a situation like this and that he’d also be ok with being so vulnerable. He knew Bucky was dangerous in the sense that, if he wanted to, Bucky could alter Tony’s perception of reality and make him live in hell. Tony could easily be forced to relive his kidnappings and torture or experience some alien terror of Bucky’s devising. Or, for all he knew, he was still in his ship’s surge tank waiting to starve to death and this whole experience wasn’t actually happening. He wouldn’t want Bucky for an enemy, that’s for sure. He also knew that he’d be powerless to do anything about it if that were the case.

Truth be told though, he didn’t care and that was probably what surprised him the most. He’d come to fully trust Bucky. Bucky, who was stoic and patient, kind and caring and always made time to talk things out in an effort to address the power imbalance, had slowly made his way past all of his defenses.

Bucky had told him that he didn’t think he could ever get enough of what they shared. He’d fallen so hard and it was so good for him and he was going to give everything he had to make sure Tony was just as happy. And there wasn’t really anything Tony could say to that except agree and thank the stars for his luck.

“Tell me one of your stories,” Tony asked, weariness taking over. “Something relaxing.” He’d come out of a long and trying day. The tomatoes that had reached sixty days were sick with what looked like blossom end rot even though they were getting enough calcium and he was probably going to lose that entire crop and he didn’t know why. The synthetic spider silk he’d been trying to develop was failing to meet any of the benchmarks set by the real thing. He’d get there, he was confident of that, but not today.

They were lying curled around each other in bed with the room lights down to a low amber glow, shadows emphasizing the grassy patterns on the wall. James hummed in agreement before leaning over and kissing him softly on the temple and… Then they were on a beach. It was so bright. The sun beat down and momentarily blinded, Tony had to shield his eyes with his hand until he adjusted.

The sound of breaking surf and the shrill cries of gulls overhead filled the air. Squinting, he could see a long, pale sand beach dotted with dark rocky outcroppings, blue ocean to one side and small, windblown trees to the other. It was deserted except for them. Tony spotted James crouched over by some rocks and when he came closer, he saw a tide pool filled with sea urchins and colourful starfish. James was gently teasing an anemone which had closed around his finger tip.

“This is earth?”

“Yeah, I saw this in a human history vid,” James said, turning to look up at Tony with a smile. “Wanted to come here.”

“Oh, I’m down for beaches anytime,” Tony replied, looking out at the endless ocean. It felt like summer but the stiff breeze tempered the sun’s heat. “How did you know how it smells? The brine and seaweed?”

“You have memories of it. I’m just puttin’ it together with what I learned.”

He barely remembered anything like that, it had been so long. Nice to know it was all still there.

Later as they walked along the water’s edge, Tony relished the cold surf as it covered his bare feet before shrinking away, drawing with it gritty sand and tiny pebbles that sluiced between his toes.

They made their way down the long stretch of beach, Tony feeling increasingly relaxed and loose limbed as he was warmed by the sun. They rounded a small peninsula and came upon a platform with a four-poster beach cabana, the kind with the gauzy curtains that caught the breeze. The lounger was big enough for both of them and it was bliss to just lie there shaded from the sun, feeling the wind on exposed skin while listening to the surf flow and ebb. Tony found all his concerns gradually melting away until he wasn’t thinking about much of anything except for the refraction of light on the water as he gazed at it meditatively. James dozed beside him, hair ruffling in the breeze, his arm stretched out so that his fingers rested in Tony’s upturned palm.

Later, he woke in their bedroom as the lights came up to indicate it was time to rise. James wasn’t there but Bucky was in his nest beside Tony. He’d extended a leg onto the bed, the jet colour a startling contrast against the white sheets, and Tony was holding the soft tip of Bucky’s foot in his hand.

Tony needed to move away from paste meals to something more like real food or he felt like his teeth would fall out from lack of anything to chew on. He’d started to synth simple ingredients such as wheat flour in order to hand make pasta and flat bread. By this point he’d successfully grown several food crops in addition to tomatoes such as green beans, lettuce, z’aalin and cucumbers, so his meals were steadily improving. Once he managed to synthesize sugar, yeast and oil, he started to spend an inordinate amount of time perfecting the donut. Having to eat his failures was the best kind of R&D because even a bad donut was the cat’s ass compared to paste.

He finally got there and successfully made a donut that was light, crisp and airy and had a thin glaze of sugar on it that cracked just right when bitten into.

“Oh Bucky, mmffff, thith is unblvable. Ith melting inmymouf,” he said, pointing wildly to his mouth with one hand as he tried to push the rest of the still warm donut in with the other, before he lost any of the precious glaze. After giving himself a moment to chew, eyes closed, clearly transported to a heavenly place, he continued. “I wish you could try this. It’s exactly right. It’s a masterpiece! It’s the best thing I’ve ever made! Sorry JARVIS, no offence but we’re talking donut perfection here.”

“None taken,” came JARVIS’ dry response. “I would never dream to compete with or place myself in the same league as fried dough.”

“I really wish I could try it just for the sounds your makin’,” Bucky said.

“This is definitely triple x food for my mouth.” Tony smiled jubilantly at Bucky, lips shiny with grease and flecks of glaze stuck in his meticulous facial hair, eyes a little wild and sparkling with mirth. Then they widened as he got an idea. “But. But! I actually do have something for you to try. Was going to do it tomorrow but no time like the present! Give me a minute.”

Tony left the common room at a jog while licking his fingers and came back shortly after with a metal looking brick on a tray. “I’ve got a new one for you. Give me a rating out of 5,” he said as he reached the kitchen island and pushed the tray towards Bucky who was at the other side of it.

Bucky reached for the tray and lifted the brick with his forelegs. He inspected it, turning it this way and that before bringing it to his mouth and carefully releasing some venom on the center portion before drinking the liquified material that formed a moment later. “What is this? So good.”

“It’s,” Tony stopped, suddenly interrupting himself as he realized he was no longer shackled by bureaucracy. “It’s Badassium. You’re eating Badassium, Buckyboo.”

Bucky spared him a look, maybe. Tony couldn’t really tell. “Is that the real name?” he asked. “Sounds dubious.”

“ _Yes_ , it’s the _real name_ , Bucky,” Tony said with as much tone as he could. “Badassium is a capacitive element and has an atomic number of 122. I should know. I made it myself.”

“What? You _made_ an element?”

“Yup.” Tony gave Bucky a challenging look as he stuffed another donut into his mouth.

“Wow. Ok, now the name makes perfect sense. It’s a solid 10 by the way. Out of 5.”

The next time both of them were free, Bucky wanted to show Tony the observation bubble at the opposite side of the ring. He’d collected blankets and a thermos of coffee for Tony, JARVIS providing the assist with the brewing, and the two of them set off for the dome. It protruded from the exterior-most wall of the habitation ring and was made of a clear material; it was the closest to feeling like they were in space without being outside of the station, the floor and walls being transparent with the station only at their backs. It was just large enough to fit Bucky and Tony comfortably and there was a small heater to help keep it from getting too cold. On this day, the ring rotation had them starting off with a view of the quasar and both settled in to just watch while making occasional idle conversation. When Tony had finished his coffee, Bucky switched to James and settled next to Tony under the blankets.

“Tell me about them? Your two friends. They’re in your thoughts often.”

“Yeah, sure,” Tony agreed, wondering how to do justice to them with mere words, but then Bucky would pick up the depth of his feelings. “James Rhodes was the best man I’ve ever known and I was lucky enough to call him my closest friend. We met in school and then he was pretty much bailing me out of bad circumstances and poor decisions until the last time I saw him. Most of the best times in my life feature him.”

“What happened? Why are you sad when you think of him, if you don’t mind me askin’.”

Tony shook his head and sighed. “Life happened? Rhodey met someone just as awesome as he was. Couldn’t be happier for him. Best man at his wedding, their biggest fan and all that. My Rhodey and his partner were jointly offered a commission to lead a crew on a high-profile exploration project to chart the stars. It was his dream job and now he had a life partner to share it with. But it was bittersweet, you know? It would have been decades before we saw each other again. I was glad he got what he wanted though – he deserved everything,” Tony said, thinking back to that moment. He’d been so thrilled for his platypus while also knowing there would be no place for him in that new chapter of James Rhodes’ life.

“And your other friend?” James asked, snaking an arm around Tony’s back to pull him closer to his side.

“Pepper. We were once together, romantically, but it didn’t work out. She was this strong, brilliant and capable person with a sense of direction and I was kind of a mess and too much of everything all at once. I know how I can get and that it can be a lot. I think she was exhausted by me.”

“Tony,” James chided him. “The way you are is not a mess. It’s brilliant and it’s one of the best things about you. I love it,” he said earnestly before giving the top of Tony’s head a kiss. “I love you. You know that right?”

Tony leaned against James. “So you keep saying. Thank you. I won’t deny it’s nice to hear. Sometimes I wonder if you’re just blind to my flaws or something. You know, alone so long that anyone would do.”

“You know that isn’t true. I didn’t feel this way about the others who came and wasn’t I pointin’ out your flaws just yesterday? At least fifty percent of everythin’ you said was ironic and I couldn’t understand most of it.”

“Rude. You’re so mean to me and it’s called sarcasm by the way. Sarcasm is my superpower which you should love if you love me,” Tony sniffed and leaned his head against James’ shoulder and felt more than heard the answering laugh. “Anyway, Pepper and I broke up but we stayed really good friends. In fact, I gave her my company to run. She had a much better head for it than I did. She could navigate the board, financials and product in a way that kept everyone happy and the share prices rising and let me focus on what I love, which is research and developing new projects. We did very well and it was great for years. She was amazing at keeping me out of trouble and believe me, I gave her enough cause to quit many times but she never did. Pepper always had my back.

She really wanted to have a family though and eventually she married a great guy and when their daughter was born, they decided to relocate to Pelomon. That’s a planet know for its lush biosphere, nice place to raise a kid. She was going to assume an overseer role at the company and hire someone to take her place for day to day operations because the communication lag between planets was too long to be practical.

“That would be so hard, your clan movin’ on and leavin’ you behind. I can’t imagine it,” James said quietly, reaching for Tony’s hand with the one that wasn’t wrapped around him.

“We have some choice with our life trajectories though and with time, they often diverge from those of our friends and families and that’s fine. It’s normal. We can make new and meaningful relationships. We’re expected to, actually.

It’s just that,” Tony paused and laced his fingers with James’, studying their intertwined hands as he gathered his thoughts. “My parents died when I was young and I’m an only child, you probably know all that, but I had these two amazing friends who became my family and it was enough. It was everything. I didn’t make other meaningful connections that lasted. My relationship style was more crash and burn. So, the flip side is that they felt guilty for choosing their own dreams over me. They felt guilty for getting on with their lives because I hadn’t done the same.

Near the end there, every time I saw Pep, I could see it, the guilt. It was written all over her face. She hadn’t hired her replacement and was delaying her move. And my Rhodey kept putting off accepting that commission to the point that he was going to lose it, and I knew it was because of me.

I decided to get out and not give them any reason not to get on with their lives. I’d go retire in an idyllic place that had an academic community and work on projects to my heart’s content with all the self funding I could want and no one to answer to. I was extremely rich by this point. The brochures were nice. Sounds good right? I think I sold them on it. I even sold myself on it for a few minutes. I packed up everything that was important to me and you know the rest.”

“You and your friends were ready to sacrifice so much for each other’s happiness. You truly loved each other,” James said.

“Yeah,” Tony agreed. It was almost cruel how the best, most successful friendships could still bring pain. “I just hope they didn’t waste any time worrying about me when I disappeared but they probably did. I still can’t believe they’re gone. I just wish they could have known that I found my own happiness.”

Tony lifted his head off James’s shoulder to face him. “James. Bucky. Just. Thank you. You know I love you back?”

James nodded and pulled Tony closer, kissing him softly on the lips. “Won’t lie and pretend I don’t love hearing it though,” he murmured against Tony’s mouth.

“Is that a dig at humans?” Tony asked teasingly. New protocol, he decided. Tell Bucky and James how much they are loved, daily.

∞ ∞ ∞

“What’s this new button Tony? It doesn’t have a designation,” Bucky asked, eyeing his meal printer. Probably. Tony couldn’t tell what he was looking at.

“That’s the wild card option,” he replied with a straight face.

He saw Bucky push it and the printer hum to life before he grabbed his mug and headed out of the room, smiling to himself. 

In a few minutes Bucky would get his favourite alloy delivered not in brick form as usual but in the shape of a donut complete with glaze and sprinkles detailed in relief, along with a surprise filling of badassium.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you made it this far I hope you enjoyed the story - thanks for reading!


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